


A Band in Hope

by cthene



Series: A Band in Hope [2]
Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Existentialism, Gen, Godklok, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 73,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25263481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthene/pseuds/cthene
Summary: With Dethklok scattered to the ends of the Earth, Skwisgaar and Toki must navigate a post-apocalyptic landscape of horrors, strange beauty, and madness, with only fragmentary memories and a few mysterious words to guide them:Stay together. Stick to the plan. Keep moving north.
Relationships: Nathan Explosion & Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Nathan Explosion/Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Serveta Skwigelf & Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Skwisgaar Skwigelf & Toki Wartooth, Skwisgaar Skwigelf/Toki Wartooth
Series: A Band in Hope [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830289
Comments: 40
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

Things happen fast.

With Mordhaus surrounded, they huddle together at the far end of the cavernous dining room and close their eyes against the sounds of the bombardment. The glare of the Doomstar slits through the tall castle windows like a transfixing laser, twisting their bodies until they fall blind with pain to the cool limestone floor. The hour of reckoning is upon them. When the Clock strikes midnight, the Churchmen emerge from their long sequestration to do battle with the armies of the dead. 

Time skips. Darkness rushes in like water, and when he opens his eyes again, the limestone is buckling beneath him. Someone yanks him by the arm, leading him on as the castle collapses around their ears, his new limbs fanning to shield him from the shower of ashes and dust. His shirt is stuck to his back with a glaze of his own blood. They are running through the woods by the time he realizes the heavy wings are caked with gore from having torn themselves from inside his body. Vertigo threatens, but the others urge him on. Behind them, the earth is splitting open, and the dead are clawing their way up toward the red light. The air is filled with the sounds of snapping bone and ripping flesh, as the demonic legions fall upon their men. No one is coming to save them; They are the only ones who can save anyone. And for now, they are too cowardly to save anyone but themselves. 

When they finally stop running, he has no idea how far they’ve gone. His body is aching and filthy as he falls to his knees in the grass and vomits the clear alcohol from his stomach. Someone holds his hair back. Someone else yokes him under his arms and drags him to his feet.

Toki has saved the Explorer. Someone else has saved one of their phones. Strong hands pull him back as the others argue about what to do with it, tearing away his ruined shirt and dipping him in the river to scrub the blood and sweat from his matted feathers. Toki murmurs something against his neck, steady fingers combing the sticky cruor from between the sensitive bristles. His legs fail him, but he is supported. His sore back and chest bunch with alien muscles required to heft his heavy wings, each one as long as he is tall. The water makes them drag, but he is grateful to feel cleaner. Someone asks him a question, but for some reason he can’t speak. His throat catches, struggling around an alien vocal apparatus. He realizes he’s in shock. 

The phone rings, and someone answers it. Offdensen is with the Church as he descends, carrying an injured Abigail, into their volcanic undersea cathedral. For her services to the god of Death, she has earned their protection, and the merest chance of survival. The signal decays as Offdensen regrets that he can’t help them any further. They stand in silence, listening to the hiss of static and wondering if they’ll ever see him again. Pickles asks for the phone so he can call his family, his voice clotted with tears. 

They spend a long night heaped together in the heart of the forest, kept awake by distant gunfire and the screams of helicopters. He lies in the middle of the pile as comfort-seeking hands roam over his body. His touch calms the others better than a bump of xan— though Toki takes some small umbrage at being forced to share.

Nathan is the first to leave. They all watch, helpless, from the shoreline as he vows to return over his shoulder, his scaled torso glistening under the neon red sky, before disappearing into the Pacific. Now what?, asks Murderface. The pink tide foams around their ankles as they stare after him, numb with the sudden loss of everything, the world they knew in flames at their backs. 

The legions of the dead chase them inland, where the carnage is beyond the horizon of even their macabre imaginations. Bodies clog the streets. Lakes of fire open without warning to consume whole blocks and intersections. Raw sewage and exhaust fumes mingle with the stench of burning flesh. 

His stomach is empty, but he can’t stop retching. The others urge him onward, but his wings are heavy, and he’s too slow to escape the groaning horde. They fist their gray hands in his hair and drag him to the pavement, where he flutters like a trapped insect, suffocated under their decaying mass. The delicate bones of his wings snap under the pressure and his jaw is forced shut as they grind his skull into the ground, biting down on his tongue until blood fills his mouth.

Toki pries him free, slipping through the crush of bodies like smoke. His vision swims, dangling in Toki’s iron grip as the gray horde snatches at their ankles, massive black wings beating against the human tide to carry them hundreds of meters into the air. In the chaos, they have been separated from the others. That night, as the splintered virgin bones mend, hardening against future injury, he lies weeping softly in Toki’s arms. Ashamed of his weakness, he buries himself in the protection of his stony sentinel and blocks out the death of the world. 

They remain on the move, never staying in the same place for more than one night. They scavenge like wild animals, smashing through abandoned homes, eating strangers’ food, and sleeping curled together in their beds. Nothing seems real, and for a while, it’s easy to ignore what’s happening around them, to drown all knowledge of it in the fervid enjoyment of each other’s minds and bodies. At any moment, they expect to wake up back at Mordhaus and find their friends waiting for them in the rec room. But the gray horde catches up with them, as it must, surprising them in their sleep and wresting them, thrashing and screaming, from each other’s arms. 

He is dragged away to a humid cellar where they strip him naked and bind his limbs, chanting Toki’s name until they cut out his tongue, weeping until they drive gray thumbs into his eyes. Each day, his eyes and tongue are cut out, his genitals gelded with a heated knife, his bones methodically broken one-by-one, beginning with the delicate phalanges of his hands and wings. Each night, he is left in a crumpled heap on the floor of his concrete cell, the rotting corpses of the two friends he and Toki abandoned propped against the furthest wall. Each morning, he wakes in a pool of his own blood, his body a flawless canvas on which to enact the whole procedure all over again, fighting with all his might against the urge to resurrect his bandmates in the knowledge that he will only be exposing them to further tortures. 

He is physically strong, much stronger than any mortal man, and it takes the whole writhing legion of them to subdue him. But they do, falling on him in a groaning wave of bodies that never stops coming until he is taken down. Once, he almost escapes from the dungeon, and in retaliation, they insert a long carbide drill into his ears to deafen him, after which he doesn’t try to escape again. He doesn’t ask ‘why.' He knows exactly who has brought him here. The one who offered him a chance to die, and when he refused it, vowed to torture him forever. The one who will never stop pursuing Her, even now that She is gone, who will never stop punishing Her rejection of Him. Painted in whitewash on the ceiling is his captor’s only message to him: ‘WHORE.’

The day they carry Nathan into the cell, he throws himself on his chest, wailing until his voice gives out. The corpse is so fresh, it almost looks like he could be sleeping, but it’s cool enough to the touch that there can be no mistake. Grief overwhelms his judgement, his body’s instinctive need to heal superceding his control, and he dissolves into an incoherent stream of curses and apologies as the broad chest stirs beneath his glowing hands. Nathan embraces him, promising him everything will be alright, and he chokes with despair, begging for Nathan’s forgiveness. In his selfish need for comfort, his desperation to hear a familiar voice, he has doomed his dearest friend to a hideous gauntlet of suffering. By the time they deposit Nathan’s mangled, swollen corpse against the wall beside Pickles and Murderface, he is drained of tears; He can only fold himself in half and press his forehead to the concrete floor, his flawless body an empty husk.

The Half Man stands over him, casually strumming the Explorer. A lush melody fills the room, a cruel parody of the gifted, passionate artist he once was. Remember this?, He taunts. How long has it been since you last payed?

His fingers twitch. He doesn’t know. The days all run together. He looks up into his captor’s face, trying to marshall some defiance, but the retort dies in his throat. 

No, he begs. Please, no. _Toki, no._

The Half Man’s pale eyes crinkle fondly at the corners. They are one and the same. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Skwisgaar thrashes awake, chest heaving, as powerful arms close around him, pulling him back down into the mattress. They are lying in a strange bed, in a strange room, in a strange house. Ear crushed against the solid breastbone, he closes his eyes and buries himself in the booming heartbeat, catching his breath and waiting for his bristling feathers to relax as calloused fingers rub his back.

“ _It’s okay,_ ” says Toki. “ _It’s just a nightmare. It’s not real._ ” 

Memories roll like beads of dew. The marble body swells with breath, a pleasant simulacrum of life, respiring with familiar heat and musk. Skwisgaar sighs as Toki’s fingers find the sweet spot just beneath the scapula on the underside of his wing, stimulating the velvet down to trigger a flood of tranquilizing hormones. Glowing waves melt his unrest and he falls unresisting into a total embrace. 

A nightmare. Not real. 

He clings with all his strength as the tremors subside, Toki’s copper beard pleasing the side of his face.

“ _It’s Him,_ ” says Toki. “ _He’s trying to make you doubt me._ ”

Skwisgaar fidgets in denial. “ _It won’t work,_ ” he creaks, his throat thick with sleep. “ _I trust you completely._ ” He presses a bassline of emotion into Toki’s chest. 

He can feel Toki’s face stretch with joy. “ _You love me,_ ” Toki gushes. It doesn’t take much to appease him. “ _I feel your love in my ribs. The vibration._ ” Broad hands thumb the blades of Skwisgaar’s hips. 

Stay together. That’s all that matters. Stay together, no matter what. As long as they’re together, He can’t hurt them. 

Skwisgaar pries his heart ajar. There must be full intimacy. He must not flinch. Relief: An answering groove resonates the inner walls of his thoracic cavity, fluttering his throat in an involuntary purr. Effortless harmony takes control. Toki flips him over to attack his mouth, the afterimages of the nightmare evaporating in a rill of giggles. Corded arms flow like liquid steel around his narrow waist, holding him fast as he squirms and kicks. This is a favorite erotic game. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t budge in Toki’s grip. That’s enough, he thinks. Let me go. He doesn’t even have to say it. Toki releases him and sits back on his haunches, angling his black wings towards the foot of the bed. 

Skwisgaar stretches, smiling up at his beloved. There is no persona; No need to be ashamed of his extraordinary appetite, or to conceal his complex feelings about sex. His limits are always honored immediately, and without complaint. This is what it feels like to trust. 

The lazy smile slides from his face as he sits up, glancing around the room. “ _Where are we?_ ” he asks. 

Toki shrugs. “ _In a house?_ ”

Skwisgaar’s bare feet arch against the hardwood floor. “ _How did we get here?_ ”

“ _We flew?_ ”

A note of confusion plucks him, and he throws off the covers and marches over to the door, feeling Toki at his heels. The bedroom is a mess. A stranger’s clothes and effects carpet the floor. Toki rifles through the pile, selecting a pair of drawstring sweatpants to sling low over his hips, and Skwisgaar looks down to realize he’s naked, his shoulders curling with sudden, awful vulnerability.

The man who lived here was broad enough, but his sweatpants are too short to cover Skwisgaar’s ankles, and wings present an obstacle to clothing his upper torso. He steps into a thin ribbed tank top, hiking the straps over his shoulders and stuffing his hands into the pants’ inseam pockets, still feeling unpleasantly exposed.

Downstairs, it looks like the place has been ransacked— or hurriedly fled. The hallway is cut into two right triangles, a tipped IKEA bookcase providing the hypotenuse. The kitchen floor sparkles with coins, keys, batteries, tinfoil, spoons, forks, shattered glass. 

He steps on a thumb tack without breaking stride, his heel leaving an ellipsis of blood on the linoleum. He’s not quite as heedless as Toki as they clamber like wolves through the ruins of the human world, but he has knowingly insulated himself from its unpleasantness. Minor wounds barely register, closing as soon as they appear, as shifting sunspots momentarily blemish the surface of a star. He cores through his surroundings like a golden drill, taking what he wants and smashing everything in his path. More often than not, he feels like a drowsy passenger in his body, letting instinct take the reins. The world is a sensuous blur. Toki is the only truly solid object, the only source of gravity. 

Skwisgaar pauses in the dining room, flexing his toes. His belongings are piled in a corner. Whatever can’t be conveniently strapped to his body will be left behind when they move on. They are traveling north, like birds for the summer, pulled along by some invisible magnetic field. The fulcra of his wings twitch. He’s vague on how they got here. He’s vague on a lot of things. The cosmic music floods his brain, making language-based thought difficult. Vibrations and feelings drive his actions. Rhythm and tempo overwhelm his sense of time. Reality comes in bars and measures. He remembers the rosewood fretboard gleaming in his hands like Excalibur when he first pulled it from the snow. The wrenching joy, the heady mixture of sublimity and eroticism that overwhelmed his child mind, the cursed object remaking him in its own image, forcing him to play until his little fingers bled. 

Through Toki, he maintains a grasp on the rudiments of his life before. The details have begun to blur, but shared memories prevent either of them from forgetting the basics of who they are. Sometimes, they lie together reciting moments from their time in Dethklok and searching each other’s faces for the light of recognition. The guitar brought them together, made them feel things for each other; And that history is important, because it’s the basis of their current relationship. Memories facilitate trust and intimacy, which are everything. Staying together is everything. Together, they are strong. They must shield each other from the howling void of loneliness and madness that exists beyond the warm bubble of their love. 

The frozen grass crunches under his feet as he wanders into the back yard, pensively strumming. He closes his eyes against the caress of photosynthesis, rendering the feeling into gentle, rolling chords. The Explorer badly needs to be restrung; But if the sound is flat and dull, going through the finger motions brings sweet comfort all the same. 

Snow sugars his hair, sizzling on his face and bare shoulders. His body is resistant to the cold, but he still prefers warmth. He wishes he could cover himself better. Whenever Toki isn’t holding him, he finds himself retreating inward. It’s easy to cede control, to curl up and hide inside this resplendent, bulletproof creature, while all around him, millions of less-fortunate souls are confettied into gore.

Nudity hasn’t always come naturally to him; Like his mother, he has the sort of modelesque proportions that look enviable on a magazine cover and slightly freakish in person. As a boy, his extreme height had made him self conscious. But as a man, he had come to enjoy the attention his exotic, androgynous beauty earned him from both sexes, and he’d shed his inhibitions. 

As a god, he is rendered newly awkward. Clothed in unspeakable radiance and power, he wants nothing more than to bury his face in Toki’s pulse, squeezing his eyes shut until he sees stars, and to block out everything happening around them. He watches himself from a distance, a wild graceful animal, always horny, always hungry, always traveling restlessly north through the sea of garbage and corpses. The golden god’s body knows what to do, how to function in this ruined world; His anxious, mortal mind is redundant. 

He blinks the snowflakes from his lashes, feeling his wings fluff and refold themselves. The nightmares are getting worse. Soon, there may be no refuge from the horror, not even in his mind. 

Inside, he rummages through his knapsack, finding a fresh pack of strings. They’re a nickel alloy, rather than the stainless steel he prefers, but they’ve got a nice, heavy gauge. Conventional wisdom says a light gauge is to be preferred for shredding— faster, more responsive, kinder on the fingers. It was Nathan who encouraged him to make the switch to 13s, in pursuit of that powerful, kinetic sound they both craved. Tense, heavy strings are difficult to bend, making the highly technical fretwork required of him a feat of finger strength, but they produce a fuller, more resonant sound. An early onstage moment which cemented Dethklok’s iconic status saw him tearing a callous mid-set and raising two fingers up to the hot lights as a rivulet of blood curved down his arm, before continuing to play through the pain to riotous applause. 

Skwisgaar had always had his pick of bands, but it was Nathan’s uncompromising commitment to that sound which attracted him to Dethklok, even at their most down-and-out. He’d been sick of bands riding his dick, telling him how great he was. The man lived and breathed metal, and he was the opposite of easily-impressed. And Skwisgaar had needed someone who would always push him— Someone who, like him, would never be satisfied. 

His stomach leaps, fingers freezing in the process of re-stringing. Nathan? He disappeared into the ocean, vowing to return for them. But when? Where? Why are they headed north? He wishes Nathan were here, so that they could ask him. He feeds the high E string into the tuning peg, securing it with a counter-clockwise twist. 

He knows the sunburst finish Gibson Le Grande propped against the wall isn’t Toki’s original axe, but he can’t remember what happened to the Flying V, or how Toki acquired this replacement. They must have raided a music store at some point, but he can’t remember where or when. These lapses in continuity didn’t used to bother him much before, when he was happy to let his brain fuzz over with music and pleasure. But the nightmares are forcing him out of his comforting state of denial. 

Grabbing his knapsack and both guitars, he treads over more broken glass on his way to the living room, where Toki is hunched over a ream of gray fabric in the middle of the floor. Curious, he cocks his head, watching Toki’s fingers work. “ _What’s that?_ ” he asks.

It takes a few minutes for Toki to answer. He stands, beaming, the guts of a household sewing kit strewn at his feet, and holds up a fleece-backed cotton sweatshirt. “ _A present. For you._ ” 

He guides Skwisgaar’s arms into the sleeves and slips the neck over his head, working his hair through the V-stitched band. From several centimeters below the collar, he has cut and sewn long vertical eyelets to accommodate Skwisgaar’s wings, which he secures with two rows of metal jacket snaps. Loving fingers stroke the join of feathers and naked flesh, sending a wave of goosebumps over Skwisgaar’s back. Without his even having to mention it, Toki sensed his desire to better cover himself, and set out to fulfill his need. 

“ _I didn’t know you could sew._ ”

Toki smiles into the velvet down, reaching around to splay his palms on Skwisgaar's cotton-covered chest. “ _I guess I picked up a little bit, at some point. The girls in my village used to make all their families’ clothes._ ” His voice resonates in Skwisgaar’s spine, making the flexors of his wings retract. “ _Maybe that’s why I like crafts. In the Church, we did everything by hand._ ” 

Skwisgaar groans softly, struggling to keep hold of the thread of conversation. This is good, they should talk more. It’s easy to lapse into totally nonverbal communication, sensing each other’s emotions and sharing thoughts in the form of vibrations. But if he’s going to pull himself out of this fog, he should get back in the habit of using his words. “ _You did, didn’t you?_ ” he asks. “ _You liked making those- Those little models. I remember that._ ” 

Toki purrs, sending him a bright lick of recognition. Yes, his model planes. How nice of Skwisgaar to remember something like that. What a good companion he is. Always so caring and appreciative of Toki. 

“ _Thank you. For the present,_ ” Skwisgaar says aloud, trying to prompt more verbalization. He turns in Toki’s grip, touching their foreheads together. 

Anything for you, the thrumming bass rolls from Toki’s diaphragm, reverb glimmering across his bare chest. Anything to make you happy. 

Skwisgaar’s tongue presses the backs of his teeth. What was he going to say before? His arms close around Toki’s rib cage, pulling them closer, without really bothering to consult him in the matter. 

Their faces rub, drawing rumbling purrs from their throats. A birdlike syrinx embedded high in the chest shares an air passage with the human larynx, expanding their vocal ranges to include a wide variety of crows and trills. This is exciting, from a musical perspective— Skwisgaar had always lamented his inability to give voice to the high notes which his perfect sense of pitch rendered so frustratingly clear in his mind —but vexing, to the extent that the strange vocal organ is sometimes difficult to control. 

What’s wrong? the nuzzling beard asks him. Toki hasn’t bothered with shaving in ages, his youthful face shining out from behind the voluminous growth like a beautiful Viking _ðegn_. Nothing, Skwisgaar thinks, as the delicious bonding feeling loosens his joints. The reverb echoes in his skull, melting morphemes into sonic nonsense.

Toki chirps his affection and curls his wings around them. Odor-causing bacteria can’t survive on his skin, so he never smells unbathed, but his flesh does have a distinctive warm and earthy scent— mineral, rather than organic in flavor, a blend of sun-baked clay and salt. 

It looks good on you. His stone chest swells with sterile breath. Everything looks good on you. You’re so beautiful. 

Skwisgaar peels away, righting his posture. There is a signal in the distance, a muted tone swelling _mezzo-forte_ on the horizon. They have to keep moving. He reaches for his nylon guitar strap, tethering the Explorer to his back, ears ringing with an aria of hope and doom.

  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s bright outside and the air is thin. The suburban grid recedes below them, yielding to a mesh of highways. Most are backed up all the way to the city with abandoned cars. If Skwisgaar doesn’t like the cold, he has to admit the snow covering makes for a more pleasant view than the layer of carnage that lies beneath it. Since the end began, stars always show in the daylight, pale Polaris luring them ceaselessly north.

He doesn’t mind flying, as long as he doesn’t think too much about it, just willing himself in a general direction and allowing his reflexes to take care of the rest. His body knows exactly how to calibrate roll, pitch, and yaw, how to take off and land like a bolt of lightning— But as soon as he starts to think about it, vertigo swamps him, and he feels like he’s going to fall right out of the sky.

Toki, who darts and weaves like a peregrine falcon, orbiting him in playful loops, does not seem to suffer from this problem. It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when he resisted his true nature; With laughing eyes and terrifying, quicksilver grace, he glories in the full power of his true form like a kid who just mastered riding a bicycle. He can go where he wants and do what he wants, unconstrained by the conventional laws of physics. The darkness seems to be at least somewhat under his control, and with care, he can even prevent the grass from wilting where he steps. To the giddy god of Death, life is all about pleasure and play, and the human world is a great big sandbox full of toys. 

He dives without warning, and Skwisgaar’s stomach lurches as he finds himself following suit. Snow melts under their bare feet as they land on the sheet metal roof of a semi truck trailer. Their wings fold behind them, feathers fluffing for warmth.

The sweatshirt really does make him feel better. Less exposed, more in control. He thrusts his chest forward and his shoulders back, breathing from the diaphragm and taking stock of himself. Awareness rises from his burning core to the surface as he tests all the muscles that leap to his command. It’s been a while since he’s felt so awake and present in his body. Suddenly, it seems troubling and strange that he doesn’t know where they are, or where they’re going.

“ _Why did we stop?_ ” he asks.

Black feathers gleam blue in the white winter sun, hungry sinews stretching tight with an impatient pentatonic scale. I want meat. I wanna kill something and eat it. I bet I could catch a deer and tear its throat out with my teeth.

“ _Toki, that’s disgusting._ ”

Teeth flash ceramic white. “ _Blood is tasty,_ ” Toki says, aloud. “ _You’d like it. You’d eat it, if I brought it to you._ ”

“ _You’re not a wolf._ ”

“ _I am a wolf!_ ” He laughs, shaking his tangled hair. Wings fan, and he pounces, kissing and biting. “ _Or at least, I feel like a wolf. I’m a wild animal._ ” The slide of his warm chest. A hard nip to the cartilage of Skwisgaar’s ear. A heavy palm over his quick-tripping heart. “ _And so are you, silly._ ” The blue fingers spread. 

“ _I am no such thing._ ” 

But men are beasts. And they are super men; Which makes them the greatest beasts of all. It’s hard to argue with the logic of Toki’s pleasing touch.

They leap from the roof of the trailer to the pavement, toes squelching in the rainbow slush of snow and spilled fuel. Toki rips the bolts from the cargo doors and flings them open with a metallic slap. Inside, he unearths pallets of cellophane wrapped sponge cakes, of the kind sold at gas stations and convenience stores in prelapsarian times. He tears into one with his teeth, eating the cream filled cake in two bites and tossing the wrapper to the ground. A pleased chirp indicates that they’re still good. Skwisgaar finds one being lovingly crammed into his mouth. He can’t disagree.

The knapsack strapped to his side is unfastened and relieved of some small weight. It’s a book, which Toki is poised to toss in the slush. 

Hey!, Skwisgaar shrills at him, catching it. “ _What are you doing?_ ”

“ _Making room,_ ” Toki garbles with his mouth full, stuffing the snack cakes into the bag. “ _I want to take some with me. I was half joking about the deer. These are way better to eat._ ”

Skwisgaar hugs the book under his arm. “ _Well, you can’t throw this away; It’s mine._ ” 

Toki’s eyelashes flick, but he doesn’t look up from the task. “ _What is it?_ ”

“ _I don’t know._ ”

“ _You don’t know?_ ”

The wing muscles in Skwisgaar’s chest twitch, a dense mesh layered beneath the human pectorals and anchored in rays to his sternum. “ _I don’t know what it is, but it’s important._ ”

The set of Toki’s shoulders is skeptical. How important can it really be, if you don’t even know what it is? But he wants his darling to be happy, of course. Sweatpants pockets bulging with snack cakes, he moves on to the next abandoned vehicle to see what else he can score. 

Skwisgaar watches him, hanging back a few meters, and tucking the book into his knapsack. His brain keeps hitting flat notes. The black and gold finish on Toki’s guitar mirrors in the sun as he carries it nestled between his wings. His balletic movements are captivating. Skwisgaar wonders if he looks the same way, from the outside. Like a living work of art. He’s not sure he wants his body to be art. “ _Toki…_ ” he asks, worrying his callouses against his palms. “ _Do you remember what it was like to be human?_ ” 

Black wings shrug. “ _I remember that it was pretty much dildos. And I couldn’t do this:_ ” Toki rips the door off the nearest car and tosses it aside before stooping into the passenger seat and rifling through the glove compartment. The interior is carpeted with rancid fast food wrappers. Money, insurance papers, garbage. “ _Hey, do you want a gun?_ ” he offers. 

“ _Pffft— For what?_ ”

“ _I don’t know. Because it’s cool?_ ” 

“ _You can kill people with your mind. What possible use could you have for a gun._ ” 

“ _Fine._ ” He drops the gun on the seat, along with a wad of blue and purple bills. 

Skwisgaar frowns. Those aren’t US dollars. He grabs one, uncrumpling it and smoothing it in his hands. The blue bill isn’t even made of cotton paper like US money, but some sort of thin, flexible plastic. “ _Where are we?_ ” he asks.

“ _Hmmn?_ ” Toki has already moved on to raiding the next car. 

Skwisgaar lifts his gaze. The traffic signs are in what looks like… French, maybe? Reading is more difficult than speaking. The shapes of the Latin letters are familiar enough, but he’s having a hard time extracting any meaning from them. 

Hang on: Definitely not English. Some of the names have that weird c with the little tail in them. Probably French.

Realizing his traveling companion has stopped in the middle of the road, Toki turns back to retrieve him. What’s wrong? his throat hums as he lays his head on Skwisgaar’s shoulder and follows his gaze from the highway sign above them to the blue five dollar bill in his hands. 

“‘Bank ofs Kan-uh-dah,’” Skwisgaar sounds out. He tucks his chin, nuzzling the crown of Toki’s head with the flat of his cheek. The touch quiets his anxiety, but it doesn’t do anything for his confusion. He stuffs the bill into his pocket and crosses his arms. “ _Toki, what the hell are we doing in Québec?_ ” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


That night, they take shelter in a gilded mansion in the forested countryside north of Montréal. A concrete barricade topped with barbed wire hems the property, and the garage is loaded with camping gear and gimmicky survivalist accoutrements. By now, Toki has finished his snack cakes, and is delighted to find a fully stocked wine cellar and disaster pantry. The wealthy couple who lived here were evidently planning to wait out the apocalypse in style, but fate had other plans. Their desiccated remains have been crammed rather ignominiously into a fire pit in the yard, along with some balled up newspaper.

Emptying his knapsack onto the floor in front of a granite fireplace in the grandest of several living rooms, Skwisgaar examines its contents with renewed purpose: Three nylon guitar picks. A second roll of nickel alloy strings. A plastic comb. A safety razor. A tube of liquid facial soap. Four hair elastics. A felt tip maker. A deck of ruled notecards. And the book. He doesn’t remember where or when he acquired any of these items, though he does remember making use of the razor and the comb as recently as a few days ago.

Toki stands over him, guzzling a magnum of champagne, the foam clinging to his beard. What’s that? He flops down and pours over the book propped open in Skwisgaar’s lap. “ _What’s that?_ ” he repeats out loud, bumping Skwisgaar’s forehead. 

The pages are covered with toothy abstract shapes in an array of pastel colors. 

“ _They’re pretty,_ ” says Toki.

“ _They’re not for decoration._ ” Skwisgaar narrows his eyes. These aren’t just any shapes: They’re maps. The book is an atlas. Why does he have it? Why does it feel so important? 

He thumbs his jaw, measuring the faint hairs. Present as he’s striving to be in his body, he can’t help but notice how filthy it is. His scalp itches, and unlike Toki, he is quite capable of smelling unwashed. 

I can’t focus like this. 

Toki kisses his forehead. “ _Let me make you a bath._ ”

“ _Pffft— There’s no running water, you dildo._ ”

“ _I know that._ ”

Implacable arms lift Skwisgaar out of his cross legged position. The atlas slides across the floor.

Upstairs, their mummified hosts have been gracious enough to supply them with a black marble bathtub large enough to accommodate a coke-fueled three-way. After scrubbing the inside with bleach and wiping it down with a clean wet rag, Toki carries thirty two-gallon jugs of distilled water and a battery powered electric kettle up from the disaster pantry in the basement.

Skwisgaar sits on the edge of the granite sink counter, nervously playing guitar while he watches Toki work. “ _This seems… excessive,_ ” he muses.

Toki bounces excitedly. “ _I just want it to be nice for you._ ” The kettle only holds two gallons, so the whole process takes a while. In the meantime, he rummages through the undersink cabinet, uncapping and sniffing every bottle he can find of some likely-looking pink or amber fluid. “ _I want to help you relax,_ ” he says. “ _You seem stressed out lately._ ” 

“ _I am._ ” Skwisgaar’s long toes curl against the lacquered cabinet door. When he closes his eyes, fingers hammering sparks against the new strings, he can see Nathan’s back disappearing into the pink ocean. “ _I’m beginning to think we should never have left California,_ ” he says. “ _I didn’t realize we’d gone so far._ ” 

Warm palms cap his juddering knees. “ _We had to leave,_ ” Toki reminds him. “ _The horde was chasing after us. We couldn’t let them catch us; They would’ve brought us to Him._ ” The final kettleful of boiling water is poured into the tub, along with a liberal dram of syrupy bubble bath, fogging the mirrors with perfumed vapor. 

“ _I know. But how is Nathan supposed to find us all the way in Québec?_ ” Skwisgaar asks, as the Explorer is gently pried from his arms. Tender hands peel away his clothes and let them curl like a rind to the floor. It will be easier to think when he’s clean, he reasons. 

“ _Nathan can tell the future. So, he’ll know where to meet up with us._ ” 

A silent purr vibrates his chest as he is lowered into the water, enveloped in a pleasure that verges on pain. He didn’t even realize how much tension he’d been holding in his back and shoulders. At times, Toki truly does know him better than he knows himself. “ _And what about Pickles and Murderface?_ ” he sighs. The scent of tea tree oil fills his nose as strong fingers work the shampoo into his itchy scalp. 

“ _Don’t worry so much,_ ” says Toki. “ _They’re out there, somewhere. Nathan will find them, too. He promised._ ”

When he took baths as a kid, Skwisgaar used to tilt his head back until his ears were just below the waterline, blocking out everything but the roar of his own heartbeat. Now, his ears clog with water, a gentle pressure in his skull— But his brain is filled with music. Sonic dreams wash over him when he closes his eyes. Nathan, he wonders, What do _you_ hear underwater?

At Toki’s prompting, he rolls over onto his belly and pillows his arms on the lip of the tub. There is just enough room for Toki to climb in after him, straddling the backs of his thighs and beginning to lather his wings. Unavoidably audible purrs escape him as a half a bottle of shampoo is massaged into his feathers, starting from the blades of the scapula and working outward towards the tips. 

Finished, Toki sinks into the tub on top of him, kissing his spine, and they spend a measure pressed together in the heat and silence.

By the time the bathwater has started to cool, Toki has heated another kettleful and is ushering him into the shower stall to be rinsed clean of soap. His limbs are heavy, eyelids drooping as Toki pours the steaming water over his head and wraps him in a giant, fluffy towel. 

It will take hours for their hair and feathers to air dry— But Toki has planned for this, too. Returning to the basement for some kindling and a magnesium fire starter, he lays Skwisgaar down on a raft of towels in front of the granite hearth, and builds them a cracking fire. 

Skwisgaar falls into a dreamless sleep, and when he opens his eyes, he is lying naked on his belly in front of the fireplace. Finally warm, and clean, and dry, his body feels brand new. He stretches in satisfaction, fluffing his tea tree scented feathers. Maybe they should just stay here, in this grand house, and wait for Nathan to come collect them. 

After a few measures, Toki appears with a second magnum of champagne and a cutting board full of charcuterie, apologizing that he couldn’t find where they kept the silverware and glasses. Not that they’ve bothered with things like table manners in ages. They eat from an assortment of cured meats, smoked fish, crackers, olives, dried fruits, and roasted nuts with their fingers, passing the bottle back and forth between them. It’s better than they’ve eaten in a long time, though neither of them is very picky, consuming with wolfish gusto whatever nonperishable foods they come across. 

The mattress they sleep on that night is an Alaska king, large enough for them to sprawl across with their tremendous wingspans. They twist in the blankets, wrestling and giggling, the walls and ceiling shuddering with their rogue electromagnetism. Staticy and hyper-sensitized, Skwisgaar makes a little churring noise he’s not sure how to identify, as silky feathers tease his skin.

It’s so different from what he remembers of human sex. He doesn’t feel like an expert anymore, like a virtuoso trying to wow his audience. The instincts that drive him leave little room for displays of technique. Bones heated and joints loose, he is propelled into a state of bubbly extremis in which he has lost all control of himself. 

Toki wraps steady hands around the backs of his knees, kissing down his chest and belly in a vertical line. Do you want me to use my mouth? 

The copper beard tickles his thighs as Skwisgaar gasps his assent. Calloused fingers stroke up and down his legs, mussing the soft whorls of golden hair, and he lifts his hips so that Toki’s nose is ground into his pubic bone. 

You are loved, chugs the rhythm line. You are loved and adored, forever. 

He arcs like a rainbow, his fists throwing sparks like a spinning lathe. Black feathers reach up to dust his burning face. Iron hands knead the backs of his thighs.

You are safe here. You are safe with me. I will always take care of you.

He sobs, hiding his face in his shoulder. Something shatters in the distance, and his knees lock as oragasm crescendos along his spine.

Toki swallows and licks him clean, before scooping him up, and he melts into Toki’s arms, defenseless against the post-orgasm bonding. Their minds blur together, synchronizing rhythm and melody. He strongly suspects Toki’s motivation for offering him blowjobs all the time is to get him in this pliant state. He can feel every cell in his body lavishing love and praise on every cell in Toki’s body. He can tell it’s Toki’s favorite thing in the whole world. 

Magnus was right about them: It was pain that brought them together. They are the answer to each other’s pain. A quiet room, with the right acoustics. A warm blanket. A place to hide. In Nathan, he’d found someone who shared his artistic values. But in Toki, he’d found someone who understood how the guitar had saved his life. 

The nightmares are getting worse. They’ve been getting worse for a while now. He feels like a despicable coward. It’s so easy to submerge himself in Toki’s boundless love and protection, to laugh, and frolic, and fuck while the world burns. But Najat bade him to love mankind, fearlessly and with his whole heart. For if he fails them, they will be scrubbed forever from the face of the Earth. How disappointed She would be, if She could see him now. Though he glimpsed Her only briefly, he loved Her immediately as a second mother, as the one who belonged in place of the phantom father he’d been searching for all his life. The thought of disappointing Her is unbearable. 

Toki’s nose fingertips along his neck. He is lost in the wonder of skin on skin, his pale eyes sightless with pleasure. I love you so much, he thinks. You’re so good. You’re the source of _everything_ good. You’re my whole world. 

Skwisgaar stares up at the coffered ceiling. Screams, gunshots, sirens, nooses made from small intestines, babies’ soft skulls caving like eggshells, water black with liquid corpses, moans and gurgles issuing from jawless faces, human fat burning like a candle wick, drowning in raw sewage, suffocating in human ashes, urine-soaked and pleading as the relentless gray horde closes in. 

I don’t feel like everything good.

  
  
  
  
  
  


In the morning, he lurches awake, his feathers bristling like needles. A sudden terrible clarity has gripped his mind. 

“ _Toki!_ ” He shakes his bedmate. 

Shiny, purplish eyelids flutter open, the god of Death rousing from the dreamless trance he is mercifully permitted as a substitute for sleep. The wide mouth widens further in a drowsy smile, consciousness rising in a familiar rhythm line. 

Skwisgaar grips his shoulders, breaking tempo. “Anglish, Toki! Speaks Anglish!” he cries.

Toki nuzzles his hand. Good morning, he chirps fondly. He doesn’t seem to register what’s being said. He hisses as his jaw is forced upward by Skwigaar’s hand. Their eyes meet.

“ _Talk to me. Use words._ ”

He makes a pitiful whimpering sound, trying to squirm back under the covers. Words? So early in the morning? 

Skwisgaar holds his face, kissing him with force. “ _I need you_ ,” he pleads. “ _Don’t go all fuzzy now. I need your mind._ ”

“ _What is it?_ ” Toki manages.

“ _Can you remember how to speak English?_ ” 

“Uhmm…” He scrunches one eye. “How ams. What’s. You says. Anglish?” 

“ _I’m gonna go ahead and count that as a ‘no.’_ ” Skwisgaar presses his face into the mattress. “ _Fuck._ ” Of course, to keep a language, you have to practice it. They only speak to each other in _norsk_ , when they speak at all. But how long has it been since they fled the ruins of Mordhaus? Since they last saw their bandmates? Since they last spoke to anyone but each other? With a lurch, he realizes he has no idea.

There is something else going on here; The architecture of his brain has shifted. He is no longer built for human language, human notions of time and space. “ _What year is it?_ ” he asks.

Toki blinks at him. “ _I don’t know._ ” Who cares?

“ _Fuck. Fuck!_ ” He turns around, his wings knocking jewelry boxes and bottles of cologne off the dresser. 

“ _It’s okay—_ ”

“ _It’s not— fuck! —Toki, it’s not okay!_ ” He stamps his feet. “ _I wanna know what the hell is going on here!_ ”

The atlas is were he left it: under a bath towel, in a corner of the living room floor. He flings it open, scanning the pages at random. Maps, maps, statistics, index, maps. The English text eludes him, but he recognizes the shapes of the continents. A map of the North Atlantic has a black line drawn across it: A diagonal route from Southern California to Newfoundland, and from Newfoundland to Greenland, and from Greenland to a little island in the Arctic Ocean, thousands of kilometers north of mainland Norway, which the black felt tip marker has circled. 

Svalbard. Not an island, but an archipelago, whose outline bears a striking resemblance to the bones of the inner ear. The smallest bones in the human body— All three of them could fit on the tip of his finger. It’s hard to fathom that something so tiny and fragile could act as the conduit to his soul. 

This must be their destination. 

With trembling hands, he grabs for the deck of notecards, slipping off the hair elastic that binds them together. They are scored with his own spindly handwriting. The letters wobble, gradually coming into focus. Luckily, it’s in Swedish; He used to be able to read English well, but he never had much of a reason to write in it. 

  
  
  


_September 9, 2010_

_You always said you were gonna learn Spanish when you moved to the US, remember? Well, you didn’t, you asshole. You know about the same fifty words every US American knows._

_This woman only spoke Spanish, so I couldn’t really say much to reassure her, but I did my best, I guess. We found her holding a dead baby. I brought it back. My good deed for the day, right? I’m not so sure. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t have done it. I mean, who the fuck would wanna grow up in a world like this?_

_Anyway, she was super grateful. Called me an angel. Definitely Catholic, had one of those little votive objects. I’m starting to wish I’d been raised religious, because maybe it would have prepared my brain for all this shit. Toki seems to be taking it better than of any of us, and I kind of think it’s because he spent his childhood being taught that demons literally walk the Earth._

_Murderface is doing okay. I guess it’s finally his chance to be band fire chief. Honestly, I shouldn’t even make fun of him; He holds up pretty well under pressure._

_Pickles is a wreck. He called his parents, trying to warn them, and they packed up and went to shelter in Seth’s compound in Australia. Fuck ‘em, right? But he’s not quite there yet. I guess I shouldn’t really be the one to judge._

  
  
  


_September 23, 2010_

_We lost Pickles and Murderface today._

_No, scratch that. That makes it sound like they died. We were separated from them, that’s all. They’re fine. We’ll find them. I mean, we’d know if anything bad had happened to them, right? We’d, like, feel it? That’s what Toki says._

  
  
  


_November 3, 2010_

_We made it to Utah. Turns out, Toki really is better at flying than me._

  
  


_November 5, 2010_

_I don’t know what to write._

  
  
  


_November 12, 2010_

_I can’t stop throwing up. Toki says it’s psychosomatic. I just wanna sleep, but I can’t. Why am I such a bitch? Why is he so much better at this than me?_

_I help people, where I can, but it feels pointless. I feel like I’m just prolonging their suffering. I’m not a fucking ethicist. I don’t even know if what I’m doing is right. Why is any of this shit on me in the first place? What the fuck do I know about anything? I’m not even a good person. Toki says I am, but what the fuck does he know?_

_No Date_

_I miss my mom._

  
  
  


_November 30?, 2010_

_I don’t know where we are right now. God, the US is fucking huge. It’s just endless corn. Why is this giant continent one country?_

_I guess it’s not anymore. I guess there are no countries. No law, no money, no electricity, no running water. I’m not even sure about the date._

_At least it’s peaceful out here, in the middle of nowhere. Away from all the people. Away from those fucking undead guys, whatever they are._

_Toki lost his guitar back at Mordhaus, so I let him borrow mine. He says he’s gonna write me a song._

  
  
  


_December 4?, 2010_

_They work for Him. The dead guys work for Him._

  
  
  


_No Date_

_Okay, something’s happening to me. I’m losing track of time. I don’t know what day it is. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to keep up this journal._

_If you (me) are reading this, here’s what you need to know:_

_The dead guys work for the Half Man. Stay the hell away from them._

_Nathan went into the water on September 1, 2010. He said he would be back. Remember, he can tell the future._

_You and Toki were separated from Pickles and Murderface in California on September 23, 2010. Don’t freak out. You will find them. Trust Nathan. Stick to the plan._

_Save Mom. Save Týr. Save Nathan’s parents. (You promised, you piece of shit.) The dead guys cluster in population centers, so you sent them to the most remote place you could think of: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It’s practically in fucking Jötenheimr. Follow the map. Go there and rescue them._

_Toki is the wildcard. Nathan says, if he goes bad, he goes all the way bad. So don’t you ever fucking let that happen. You listen to me: You love him like the world depends on it, because it literally fucking does._

_Stay together. That’s all that matters. Stay together, no matter what. As long as you’re together, He can’t hurt you. Stay together, and keep moving north._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

The embers in the fireplace are still warm, so they can’t have gotten more than a few hours of sleep. Chemical reactions tell time. The sun tells time. The length of his nails and the faint hairs on his chin tell time. But only on the scale of hours and days. None of these things can tell him what year it is.

He shuffles the notecards and reads them again, shivering memories loose. His mother’s voice and scent are vivid in his mind, but her face is already a watercolor blur. The felt tip marker rolls against his shin. Static clings a blank notecard to the heel of his palm and he peels it away. Numbness is spreading through his guts.

You promised you’d come back for them. You promised they’d be safe.

The dangling marker casts a finger of blue shadow across the surface of the paper. He makes a series of vertical strokes, testing his muscle memory, and then tries to write:

‘Åå Ää Bb Cc Dd’

Some small relief. He can at least form the letters. He turns the card over, and writes on the back:

‘Mamma, jag är så ledsen’

The penmanship looks deliberate and childish, nothing like the dense, delicate script on the earlier cards. But it’s functional. The language lobe of his brain has deteriorated, but not as severely as he may have feared.

What now? The map. The plan. 

His mother stood in Nathan’s parents’ kitchen, holding a mug of coffee with a picture of a largemouth bass on it, and he pressed a folded slip of yellow legal paper into her hands. What was written on that paper? He can smell the coffee and the Lysol, but he can’t remember what he wrote. The image flipbooks in his mind’s eye: The yellow paper, her pink nails, the green bass. That kitchen could be underwater by now. That coffee mug could be at the bottom of the ocean. Surrounded by actual fish.

He twists right, feeling the atlas under his wing. The black arc of their route bleeds through the glossy page. If he’s reading the scale correctly— by no means a given —they’re a little less than halfway to their destination. He makes a fat dot over their new starting point of Montréal, caps the marker, and jams it into his pocket. Five thousand kilometers from here to Svalbard, over the Arctic Ocean. He’s heard of birds crossing the Atlantic in a matter of days. They could have been there already, if he hadn’t become so distracted. 

“ _S’wrong?_ ” Toki is standing at the bottom of the staircase, his hand wrapped around the spherical knob of the oak banister, his jaw pulling and clicking in a catlike yawn. It wasn’t a nightmare, was it? I can usually feel when your mind is dreaming.

Ashes spray from the hearth behind him as Skwisgaar springs, wings lifting him off the floor and onto his feet in a single, fluid motion. Toki’s arms catch him at the top of his vault, a warm mouth planting sleepy, sloppy kisses on his neck. A reedy whine climbs Toki’s throat. Come back to bed. It’s too early for intrigue. 

“ _No._ ” Skwisgaar fidgets. “ _We have to keep moving._ ” His eardrums are pounding with staccato heartbeats. The yellow paper, her yellow hair. His mother’s face shouldn’t be so difficult to picture. It’s his own face, if he’d been female. They look that much alike. But he finds he can’t picture his own face either. His wrist twists in Toki’s grip.

Heavy arms release him, fingers curling, bereft, into slow fists. “ _But it’s so nice here._ ” Toki slumps. “ _I wanna stay._ ” Even if he doesn’t sleep, something in him grows tired. His mind? It’s dawn, and something in him resents it.

“ _How long has it been since we left Mordhaus?_ ” 

“ _I don’t know._ ” His eyes don’t crust, but Toki rubs them anyway. “ _Why does it matter?_ ” A note of frustration enters his voice. There’s a degree of possessiveness which he can’t help, a subatomic attraction between them in which they are always choosing whether or not to indulge. But Toki has shown a deep commitment to being conscientious of certain boundaries. He is often coaxing and forceful, but his advances always cease the moment he senses they are unwelcome. His strategy— and it does appear to be a deliberate strategy— is to take as much as he possibly can while it’s allowed. 

His brow wrinkles. “ _Why can’t we stay here? I like it here. I don’t wanna go._ ”

“ _Because—!_ ” Skwisgaar jerks towards the door and back again. He doesn’t know where to direct his energy. Feedback hisses over his skin. Nononono, “ _What if we’re too late?_ ” 

Just how distorted is their sense of time? Could they have spent a hundred years dozing in a corn field without even realizing it? He’s going to vomit. 

“ _Too late for what?_ ”

Panic chokes him. Numb hands stuff the knapsack, raking the floor for his belongings. She loved him, and in the end, he knew it. He asked her to do something selfless, something brave, for him. When she accepted the yellow paper, she was trying to earn his trust again. What if, after all that, he ended up being the one who failed her? What if he sent her to the ends of the Earth, and forgot her there? 

“ _What’s wrong? Why are you crying?_ ” 

“ _Toki, what if they were waiting for me, and I never came?!_ ”

Awake now, Toki spreads his wings to block the exit. “ _Stop,_ ” he says. “ _Who? Tell me what’s happening!_ ” 

“ _Fuckfuckfuck—_ ” Skwisgaar falls against him, hyperventilating. His nails dent Toki’s back. 

“ _What is it?_ ” Toki gathers his slack weight. Please, Darling. Why are you upset? How do I fix it?

The yellow paper, her pink nails, five thousand kilometers. Nathan, knee deep in a coffee colored river. He is faceless, and the English words he speaks are nonsense; But it would be impossible to forget the sound of his voice. 

Pixels fuzz his vision, his brain drunk on over-oxygenated blood. He sinks, knees buckling until his eyes are level with Toki’s collarbone. Soothing chords ripple along his skin. Even now, he can’t break himself of this cowardly comfort-seeking. As far as he knows, they all died waiting for him up there in the cold. And here he is, being an absolute baby about it. Useless. 

Catching the gist of these feelings, Toki lifts him into a tight squeeze. “ _No, no, don’t think like that,_ ” he says. His heart thumps an urgent tremolo. “ _You’re good, you’re so good. You’re so good, you even make me good._ ”

Skwisgaar wails.

His feet leave the floor, and suddenly the sofa is under him. Toki lowers him onto the cushions, stroking his chest. A lullaby hums from Toki’s palm, vibrating along his thoracic nerves and slowing his respiratory reflex. He lets his lungs inflate, holding them at capacity for several bars before releasing his breath. “ _I let my family down,_ ” he says. “ _I let Nathan’s family down._ ”

“ _What do you mean?_ ”

“ _I’m supposed to fix things,_ ” he says, quickly growing hysterical again. “ _Me! I’m supposed to save humanity! This thing_ —” he gestures at his body “— _is the key to fixing everything. And I’m stuck inside of it. And that means I have to fix everything! But instead, I’ve been wasting time. And now, for all I know, it’s the year, fucking, twenty-one hundred or something, and they're all dead!_ ”

“ _Nathan would be back by now,_ ” Toki offers. “ _Nathan would be back already, if it had been that long._ ” 

Skwisgaar turns his face against the arm of the sofa. The cards said to trust Nathan. Stay calm. Stick to the plan. “ _Okay,_ ” he exhales. Reaching up, his hand curves around the back of Toki’s neck, thumb stroking the hinge of his jaw. 

“ _It’s okay. Don’t cry. It’s—_ ” Toki turns to stone in his arms, every muscle freezing, including his heart. 

There’s someone else in the house. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


The concrete wall around the property is interrupted by a corrugated steel gate that opens onto a long sandstone driveway. They wouldn’t have had any reason to notice this when they flew over it, but the gate is secured, makeshift, with a combination bike lock. 

There are two figures crossing the lawn, featureless in twilight. Female, adolescent, from their pitch and gait. The smaller one huddles close behind, while the other makes way for them with a hunting rifle. Once inside, they lock the gate behind them, in a way that suggests they’ve been here before. 

Crouched behind the railing of a second story balcony, Skwisgaar watches them with interest. Details sharpen as they approach the side of the house. Dark hair, heart-shaped faces. The one with the gun sports a Christmas-color flannel and a high ponytail. It’s possible, even likely, that they’ve been squatting here for some time; Which would explain why the house is relatively free of dust, compared with so many of the others he and Toki have Goldilocksed their way into. Damn it, he used to be kind of perceptive. Or at least, he’s always been quiet, which used to mean he was kind of good at hanging back and observing things. 

His heels bounce on the cold tile, wings twitching with agitation. These girls are no threat; They might even be helpful, if they can tell him the date. It’s just a matter of introducing himself. He also used to be kind of charming.

The one with the rifle spies him. “Qui êtes vous?” she shouts up at him, lifting the barrel, as the others duck behind her. 

“Okej!” He stands slowly, extending his arms and wings in pacification. Words? She speaks French, and almost certainly English, but the chances of encountering anyone who speaks Swedish outside of Sweden are virtually nil. Frustration burns the back of his throat. The apocalypse was really not the ideal time to have lost his facility with one of the most commonly spoken languages on Earth.

“Qu’es-tu?” she demands, adjusting her grip. 

“Okej, okej,” he says, layering his voice with a soft, angelic echo. He points to the ground, telegraphing his intention to come down and greet them. “Hallå,” he smiles. Planting one foot on the railing, he leans forward, letting his weight tip him off the balcony. 

A miscalculation. Leading with his shoulder, he falls face down in the snow, warm liquid pooling beneath him. The muzzle flash and sound seem out of sync. At first there’s no pain; He’s simply confused as to why his wing has failed him. 

A dark blur shimmers past him, and without thinking, he lunges to catch Toki by the ankle, dragging him down. “ _No! Toki, no!_ ” he snaps, like he’s admonishing a willful dog. He might as well be, for all the struggling and biting. “ _Don’t!_ ” With strength he didn’t know he was capable of, Skwisgaar tackles him, grinding his nose into the frozen dirt. Blows pop with white sparks, as if their bodies are clashing metal. They’re not, as the gushing wound in his thigh proves. They’re much softer than metal, and when they hit each other, it hurts. 

Toki wriggles on the ground, wings flapping. It’s hard to keep a hold on him. His dark powers allow him to move like smoke, at times seeming almost to slip through solid matter. Somehow, he has rolled onto his back, furiously chittering as incandescent hands pin his wrists. He hammers the back of his head against the ground, swearing and hissing. When they’re play-wrestling, Toki always feels so much stronger. But he’s really pinned now, and it’s not a game at all. 

The girls have fled, leaving the gate swinging open. Panting, Skwisgaar levers his full weight on Toki’s chest. “ _Stay down,_ ” he says. His skull is ringing. Toki glares up at him, spitting a few strands of hair from his mouth. 

If you really trusted him completely, it wouldn't be such a relief to know you’re a match for him, would it? Is it an ego thing? 

Is it about what you read on the cards?

The sky is brightening. Toki’s breathing slows beneath him, the silence around them unfurling with the sounds of early birds. 

Then again, maybe he’s pulling his punches. Going easy on you. He was trying to protect you. 

Adrenaline ebbs, unmasking the pain, and his grip releases. “ _Oh—_ ” he gasps. His right wing is broken in several places, and there’s a high caliber grizzly bear bullet embedded in his right thigh, the piercing end flattened against his cracked femur. “ _Nnnnnnnnnnn… Oh fuuuuuck…_ ” he drags out. A free Toki sits up, corralling him into his arms.

On inspection, she hit him uncomfortably close to the dick zone. The lap of his sweatpants is black and sticky with blood. “ _Toki, it huuuuurts,_ ” he groans, his breath shortening as the muscle fibers contract, his body working to expel the foreign object. The pulp of his quadriceps is visible through a tear in the fabric. This is the worst part. 

“ _I know,_ ” says Toki, cradling him pietà over one knee. Oh Darling, I can feel how much pain you’re in. I wish I could have stopped it. Like clothing draped around a hidden knife, his tenderness conceals a glint of rage. 

“ _Don’t even think about it. I’ll fight you again, you stupid dildo._ ” 

“ _She shot you,_ ” Toki insists. 

Skwisgaar tilts his head back, squeezing Toki’s hand. “ _She was scared,_ ” he grits. “ _I don’t blame her. I’ll be fine._ ” The wound makes a horrible sucking sound, geysering blood, and his vision dazzles with pain as the hot thumb of metal works its way through to the surface. “ _Nnnnnnnnnnffffff... Toki, it fucking huuuuuurts…_ ” His knuckles are white. “ _Hold my hand, hold my hand,_ ” he pleads, even though Toki already is. His leg seizes, the muscle spitting out the bullet in a slow, pulpy, wet kiss, until it rolls, hot and slippery, into the snow. 

Guess that means you missed your chance to get that lip piercing you were considering during your goth phase, he thinks dizzily. No point now, if your flesh is just going to spit it out. On the bright side, look how far you’ve come: You’re finally mature enough to admit you had a goth phase. 

The wound burns, concentrating with golden light, and he arches his spine into the feeling, sighing in relief as the tingling heat pours down his nerves. “ _Jesus-fuck, that’s so much better._ ” He smiles blearily up at Toki, wiping the sweat from his forehead on the back of his sleeve. The worst part is over. From here, the healing process has begun to mute the pain. A little sleep will put him good as new. 

He gives Toki’s beard an affectionate but forceful tug. “ _I forbid you from hurting them,_ ” he says, punctuating this edict with a kiss. Toki’s bowed head falls to rest, submissive, on his shoulder, simmering inscrutably within. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


The embers are still hot enough that it’s easy to rekindle the fire without using the magnesium strike box. Their clothes, wet from rolling in the snow, are laid out on hearthstone to dry. Once the fire is roaring again, Toki disappears into the basement, leaving him laid out on the brocade sofa beneath the bay window. He stares into the flames until they leave a pale green impression on the inside of his eyelids, contemplating his injuries. The pain in his thigh is tolerable, as long as he doesn’t look at it. But it could take up to a day to fully heal. 

The bones of his wings are hollow, and when they break, they splinter. He can’t fly, in this condition. They’ll have to stay here, until tomorrow morning. If they’re already too late, what’s another day? No, avoid that thought. Wincing, he pulls the sofa throw over his naked lower half. He feels like vomiting again.

“ _I was gonna ask them what year it is,_ ” he says to the ceiling, as Toki returns with a campfire percolator and two enamel cups, arranging them on the hearthstone along with a tin of ground coffee.

“ _Sorry_.”

He folds his hands over his belly, gingerly tucking his injured wing. “ _I know you were just trying to protect me,_ ” he says. “ _But you can’t do that again._ ”

Crouching like a gargoyle in front of the fireplace, Toki levels two spoonfuls of coffee into the brew basket. He’s dressed in nothing but a pair of black boxer shorts pilfered from the master bedroom, his back muscles bunching in visible annoyance. The enamel lid clinks against the stainless steel rim of the carafe. He doesn’t turn around.

“ _Toki?_ ”

His feathers spike. He puts the spoon down and closes the tin of coffee. 

“ _You can’t do that again._ ”

A run of high, discordant quarter notes. His back ripples, accentuated by the firelight, bristled feathers iridescing blue. “ _They shot you,_ ” he says, into the fireplace. “ _How am I supposed to not react when someone shoots you?_ ”

“ _Oh, come on,_ ” Skwisgaar scoffs. “ _Me getting shot is like… a mortal stubbing their toe._ ”

Toki stands up and turns to face the sofa. “ _You were in horrible pain,_ ” he says. “ _I felt it._ ” His jaw is grinding. All progress on the coffee front has halted. 

“ _It doesn’t matter: You can’t go around massacring some of the only mortals left._ ”

The fire pops, logs reshuffling. Outside, the wind is winnowing like wet fingers sliding over the rim of a glass.

“ _Why not?_ ”

Skwisgaar opens his mouth, and closes it again. “ _Because we’re trying to save them!_ ”

The orange light casts a long, winged shadow across the stone floor. Toki’s beard hits his collarbone, bronze hair curtaining his face. He could be a weeping statue in a graveyard. “ _Why should I wanna save them? What have mortals ever done for me?_ ” he rasps. “ _They’ve only ever hurt me._ ”

Using only the strength of his arms, Skwisgaar rights himself on the sofa and props his heels on the antique steamer trunk placed in front of it as a coffee table. “ _How can you say that?_ ” he asks, incredulous. “ _What about Charles? What about Abigail?_ ” Of course, Toki doesn’t really mean it. He has this mode. Petulant, recalcitrant, prone to self-pitying hyperbole. 

“ _That’s different. They worked for Dethklok._ ” He doesn’t look up. “ _Before Dethklok— Before I was famous— Before you— Nobody ever showed me any kindness._ ” 

Skwisgaar sneers at him. “ _That’s not true, and you know it._ ” He can hear his voice getting angry. At himself, mostly, for letting them get so far off track in the first place. “ _There was that woman. From the Norwegian government. She tried to help you. You told me._ ”

“ _That’s right._ ” Toki looks up, opal eyes beaming like headlights from among the shadows. “ _And I fucking killed her._ ” The wind revs, hailstones striking the windows in an urgent drum roll. He paces the floor, a flighty vibrato rippling under his feet through the stone. “ _How dare they?_ ” he hisses. “ _How dare they put even a scratch on you? Who do they think they are?_ ” He doesn’t say ‘they’re like ants to us.’ He doesn’t really have to. 

He stops, audible breaths flaring his nostrils. A wildcard, the note said. Nathan’s word. 

Are you afraid of him? It’s hard to tell. His love is impossible to doubt. Are you afraid of the note? 

All the way bad, it said. If he goes bad, he goes all the way bad.

They stare at each other in silence, the wind, and the hail, and the fire forming a wall of white noise around them. Skwisgaar leans forward. “ _Aren’t you gonna make me some fucking coffee?_ ” 

A seismic shock of rage splits the stone in a long, lightning bolt fissure. Toki goes for the door. 

“ _Toki!_ ” Skwisgaar shouts. “ _Toki, no!_ ” He staggers off the sofa on his good leg. There’s no catching up with him. Think fast. “ _If you kill that girl, I won’t forgive you for it!_ ” 

Toki freezes, his hand on the brass pull. He turns away from the door, lips parted in a half moon of fear. 

Having captured his full attention, Skwisgaar calmly lowers himself back onto the sofa. What are you afraid of? It’s not that hard to get your way with someone who lives for your approval, is it? Dissonant counter tones ping against the inside of his stomach. “ _You’re scaring me,_ ” he says, lowering his eyelashes. See? Easy.

Head shaking in denial, Toki takes a step towards him. “ _Don’t. Say that._ ” He flinches. “ _It’s Him. It’s the dreams. He’s trying to get into your head._ ” Distress leaps from him in sharp licks. “ _It didn’t used to be like this,_ ” he says. “ _He’s trying to turn you against me._ ” 

“ _It’s not Him._ ” Skwisgaar folds his hands primly, foreclosing this line of argument. 

“ _Why- Why are you saying these things?_ ” Toki steps over the crack his outburst left in the floor. His eyes dart back and forth, suddenly lost.

“ _I was hiding, before. From my responsibilities. From what’s happened to the world._ ” Skwisgaar swallows. “ _But I can't do that anymore. I have to protect them._ ” He summons his iciest tone: “ _Even from you._ ” 

“ _I’m sorry._ ” Toki wilts. “ _I didn’t mean it—_ ”

It’s easy to get your way with someone who needs you like air, isn’t it, Najat? So what went wrong? Why couldn’t you control Him? 

Skwisgaar retreats, pulling the blanket back over his lap. Playing this game feels bad. Dangerous. 

Was He humiliated, because you had all the power? Is that why He lashed out at you?

Toki sits down on the steamer trunk, wings dusting the floor. “ _I didn’t mean it,_ ” he says. “ _I was just angry. I don’t really hate mortals._ ” He traps his hands between his thighs. “ _Are you… mad at me?_ ” he asks. 

Tell him what you found. Radical trust requires absolute honesty. Don’t be coy. Don’t try to manipulate him. Tell him what you’re really afraid of. 

“ _I’m not mad._ ” Skwisgaar studies him. “ _I’m worried. Dethklok is humanity’s last chance. If we fail, they’re gone forever._ ”

Toki’s head gives a minute, unconscious shake. 

“ _Nathan told me about your future,_ ” he continues. “ _He told me… you might turn on us, and destroy humanity._ ” 

“ _No—_ ” Toki blurts. Something in him crumbles, opening up a chasm underneath it. “ _No, no, please, no._ ” His forehead hits the seat of the sofa, his torso parallel with the floor. His wings tuck themselves tightly against his body. Shallow, hiccupping pleas shake his shoulders. “ _I’m sorry. I’ll be good— I’ll do whatever you tell me to do—_ ” 

Skwisgaar touches his head and he pours onto the floor, clutching Skwisgaar’s lower legs. His mind is swallowed by a vibrating void. The monophonic drone of starving desperation. “ _Please—_ ” His grip throttles Skwisgaar’s shins.

Skwisgaar combs his firelit hair to one side, revealing a sliver of moon blue scalp. “ _Show me what you’re afraid of,_ ” he says, relaxing his mind open. 

A flood of sound-images washes over him. The Half Man stands at the bottom of the world, parting a violet sea, the roar of the water drowning the gurgles of the dead. Centuries of pain have warped Him beyond all recognition. He is a screaming black hole of loneliness. He doesn’t breathe, He doesn’t eat, He doesn’t sleep. He knows no warmth, no light, no hope. He thinks only of vengeance; Vengeance against Najat, against Dethklok, against the universe itself for ever allowing such a doomed creature as Him to exist in the first place.

The tide plunges, lavender foam rising around His ankles. He sees Toki. He sees what meager enjoyments Toki has carved out for himself. How carefully Toki has bottled the ocean. How tame and flinching Toki has made himself, for the sake of his only chance at love. He laughs. You will lose everything, He says. You will betray them. You will have no choice. The sea parts, revealing a field of polished bones. The mind of Death screams in stereo, falling forever, unanchored in time.

Skwisgaar hums a few measures of soothing nonsense, dissolving the vision. “ _I see,_ ” he says. “ _You’ve been hiding too, huh?_ ” Toki’s head is heavy on his unbroken thigh, puffs of frantic breath tickling his skin. 

He coaxes Toki up onto the sofa, pulling him close. The bruising grip wraps around his ribs. Minutes pass, the fire shifting, as Toki’s vicelike arms gradually relax. The hum rumbles along his radia, opening him like a fist. 

“ _Sometimes I have this… rage inside of me,_ ” he whispers. 

“ _I know._ ” Skwisgaar withdraws, cupping his ear. “ _I shouldn’t have woken you up so early,_ ” he says. “ _I know it’s harder to stay in control, when you’re tired or hungry. You start to… float away. It’s the same for me._ ” 

At last, the coffee goes on the fire. It’s ready when the hail stops, along with some sardines on crackers. White light falls through the windows in cold stripes. They eat their breakfast on top of the steamer trunk, listening to the falling dust. 

It’s good that they’re talking about these things now, Skwisgaar thinks. No matter how painful it is, it’s important to face the reality of their circumstances. It’s okay for them to disagree, or even fight sometimes. What matters is that they trust each other. 

Eating helps. Their nerves are calmer. Toki sits on the floor in front of the fireplace, studying the Atlas, as Skwisgaar watches him from the sofa, restringing the Le Grande. He reads the cards, frowning in concentration at the intricate letters. He reads Nathan’s warning about him. Pours himself another cup of coffee, cut with three lumps of sugar. Doesn’t sulk, or stomp off, like Old Toki might have. Instead, he’s contemplative and still. Light polishes the smooth planes of his face. 

See, Najat? We’re learning, together. There are no secrets. 

Skwisgaar gives the high E peg a quarter-twist, feeling the pitch in his fingertips. “ _We have to find them._ ” He nods at the map, spread open on the floor. 

“ _At Svalbard?_ ” Toki asks. “ _The Arctic Seed Vault?_ ”

He strums a chromatic fill passage, nodding along. “ _My mom promised me she would save the seeds,_ ” he explains. “ _I’m gonna plant them, when all this is over._ ”

Toki traces the path of the black marker, humming in time with the passage. “ _To save humanity,_ ” he says. “ _From Him?_ ” His cup comes to rest on the hearthstone, expiring curls of sugared steam. His face crumples, fingertips finding the crack in the floor. “ _Or from me?_ ” 

The Le Grande is in perfect tune. Skwisgaar stills the strings. “ _Come here,_ ” he breathes. 

Black wings fill the bay window, descending on him like a cloud. Their faces rub, the instrument humming between them with potential energy. Toki whimpers, tears condensing in his beard, and Skwisgaar phrases out a passage or two of his misery. The hungry void inside of him is the fear that Skwisgaar might some day leave him. Might leave him alone for all eternity, with no hope of knowing love or companionship ever again. That fear never went away; All this time, he’s just been covering it up. Pretending everything was fine, in the hopes of making himself believe it.

“ _I wanna be good,_ ” he says. “ _I can’t be like Him. I just— I can’t. He says it’s inevitable—_ ” he chokes. “ _But Nathan says I have a choice. It says so in that note, doesn’t it? So— So that means He’s wrong._ ”

“ _Yes,_ ” Skwisgaar promises. “ _You always have a choice._ ”

Necking brings the glow of pleasure, a violet blush rising in Toki’s face and chest. When you touch me, he sobs, I feel it. I get to feel something. Please, please, pleasepleaseplease, don’t take it away. I’ll be good. I’ll do anything. 

Skwisgaar flips the freshly strung Le Grande, pressing it into Toki’s arms. Grateful fingers curl around the ebony and pearl fretboard, trembling with inarticulable longing.

“ _Relax,_ ” he says. “ _I promised you forever, didn’t I? Well, I’m not just saying that shit. Toki, I really mean it._ ” 

Ok, Toki nods. He spins a nervous passage, trying to slow his racing heart. 

See, Toki? The Half Man’s heart doesn’t race. You gave yourself this form; You softened Death itself into something that could blush for me. I didn’t give you that. Your strength did that. 

“ _You know what? I bet we can figure out what year it is,_ ” Skwisgaar says. He leans in, covering Toki’s eye socket with his own. “ _Let’s think together,_ ” he gentles, coaxing Toki’s mind to open for him. Their bodies angle closer, wings unconsciously stroking each other, thoughts beginning to harmonize.

“ _Well…_ ” Toki’s fingers gallop, hammering on a tune of ice and snow. “ _How many times has it been winter?_ ” he asks. 

“ _I— Hang on…_ ” Skwisgaar frowns against him. 

Four bars, a key change. 

“ _It was winter when we were in Nebraska. How many times has it been winter since then?_ ”

“ _It’s winter now. Right?_ ”

“ _Yeah._ ”

“ _Then. Oh!_ ” 

E minor to C minor. 

“ _It’s been a year,_ ” says Toki. “ _A year and a half. Something like that._ ” 

Skwisgaar’s heart soars. A year and a half. Not a century. It’s not too late to look for them on Svalbard. It’s not too late to think they might still be alive. He nuzzles Toki’s face, trilling with joy. Silky bristles rake his neck, iron hands finding his waist. You see, Darling? he thinks. I need you. I can’t fix everything alone. 

It’s cloudy and dark for the rest of the day, the wind surging and receding at odd intervals. There’s not much to discuss in terms of planning their Arctic journey, so they spend most of it in companionable silence or playing guitar. For dinner, they heat a can of fèves au lard over the fire and finish the rest of the crackers. 

Before the sun sets, Skwisgaar is ready to fall asleep right there on the livingroom sofa. He lets Toki dress him, enjoying the feel of fire-warmed laundry on his tired body. His thigh is pink and shiny, raw skin stretched over the damaged muscle as severed fibers comb themselves back into place. Strong arms position him for cuddling, careful of his injured wing, and he closes his eyes, listening to the soothing rhythm of Toki’s chest. In the morning, he’ll be fit to fly again. 

“ _You’ve been really good to me,_ ” he murmurs. “ _The way you treat me… It’s what I’ve always…_ ” He blushes, yielding to a pleasant squirm. “ _You… take care of me,_ ” he says. “ _I couldn’t say it, when I was human. I didn’t even really know it. But inside… that’s what I’ve always wanted._ ” 

“ _I know,_ ” Toki coos. “ _You’ve always been a total princess. You only thought you were hiding it._ ” 

Skwisgaar snorts. “ _I’m being serious._ ” He splays his fingers over Toki’s belly, feeling it flutter. “ _I can tell how hard you’ve been trying,_ ” he says. “ _I don’t want you to live in some… crazy, eternal fear of messing up._ ” 

Flesh turns to stone under his hand. “ _But I can’t lose you._ ” Toki’s voice is a cracked whisper. “ _And I don’t know how to keep you._ ” 

“ _Easy:_ ” Skwisgaar smiles, crinkling his eyes. “ _We have forever to get it right; We just have to give each other infinite chances._ ”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He wakes up to the sound of himself screaming. His eyes fly open to see Toki being dragged across the stone floor, gray hands grappling his arms, and legs, and wings, and throat, clamping over his mouth to muffle his cries. The sofa they slept on is covered in shattered glass. 

Skwisgaar lunges after them, but the hands hook his waist from behind, palming his chest and belly, snagging his limbs, and twisting in his hair. As he is yanked backwards through the bay window onto the lawn, he glimpses Toki disappearing, as though into a pit of quicksand, beneath the undulating mass of gray flesh. 

His screams are stifled by gray thumbs jamming into his mouth and ears, gray fists, and elbows, and knees knocking the breath from his belly. The horde flows like a mudslide, moving as one substance to bury him. The more he struggles, the more bodies are piled on, flattening his wings and pinning him to the ground. He bites down on their fingers, but they feel no pain, their gray blood filling his mouth as they heedlessly force themselves down his throat. 

The smell of topsoil fills his lungs, the rot of grass, and leaves, and animal dung tilled up from beneath the crust of snow. The horde have no scent, but their blood leaves a metallic zap on his tongue. Their soulless bodies bear no resonance against him, no vibration of life, nothing he can tap into. They’re like styrofoam packing peanuts. Empty, interchangeable, designed to fill space, their texture revolting against his skin. 

The human wave parts, exposing his chest as they restrain his head and limbs. Fat snowflakes float down from a pale morning sky filled with huge yellow stars. A lone figure splits from the host, straddling his legs and reaching high into the air. Above him, a long dagger made of violet crystal glints in the sun. He closes his eyes as the gray arm reels back, preparing to cut out his heart. His mind screams for Toki. If this were a nightmare, this might be the part where he’d wake up. 

The arm holding the dagger snaps, elbow folding backwards, jagged splits of bone stabbing through the gray flesh. Toki slots his fingers into the creature’s mouth and rips a spray of inklike blood, the jawless head rolling away into the snow. 

“ _The brain!_ ” he yells. “ _Go for the brain!_ ” 

Finding his leg free, Skwisgaar kicks one of them between the eyes as Toki fights to pry him from their suffocating grip. Heads cave like watermelons, their bodies falling crooked and absurd on top of him, their black brains smeared across his face and chest. Still pinned, he chokes on his own vomit. He can feel himself shutting down, useless with shock as Toki drills his slippery fingers into their eye sockets and cleaves them open. 

Wrenched free of the horde, Skwisgaar staggers to his feet and hocks his dinner into the snow. There’s no time to regroup. Sour bile drips from his chin, but he can still taste their metal blood. He watches, totally numb, as they pour through the gate faster than Toki can decapitate them. 

“ _Your hands are strong enough to crush their skulls!_ ” Toki cries. “ _Do it!_ ”

The light throbs within him, lifting his chest. His body is fully healed from yesterday, balanced, and quick, and crackling with power. It’s his mind that can’t act. He watches, helpless, as Toki tears one from the spinal chord, crushes another one under his heel. The wave of bodies pushes Toki towards the house, threatening to overwhelm him as the gray hands close around his throat. 

“ _Skwisgaar!_ ”

Don’t be such a fucking bitch. 

He plunges his golden thumbs into its salty eyeballs, squeezing until the black brains gush over his hands like bursting fruit. He tries severing a few necks, but it’s easier to just crush the skulls between his hands, like Toki said. A spike of adrenaline pierces the fog, his muscles heating with an exhilarating, almost erotic feeling of raw strength. Startled, he watches himself sinking his fingers into their wet brain pans, clutching handfuls of gray matter compounded with hair and chips of bone. Nasal cavities collapse, maxilla splitting open like venus flytraps. Jaws compact into crania, teeth appearing inside eye sockets. His mind floats, untethered, letting him act on pure reflex. Nicks and scratches vanish from his bright forearms as quickly as they appear, leaving pricks of blood, like red dew, on the surface of his skin. His body knows how to fight, as long as he stays out of its way. In that sense, it’s not so different from flying. 

Clawing his way through the wall of bodies, he makes it to Toki and yanks him loose, vaulting them both into the air. The horde surges after them, but they achieve escape velocity, wings carrying them onto the snow-covered roof. Toki pats him for injuries, rejoicing and cursing. Darling, they almost had you. Darling, you’re so strong, you’re so brave. He doesn’t feel brave. The sensation of black ichor squelching under his fingernails is threatening to make him vomit again. 

Below them, the horde flows over the yard in unison, utterly indifferent to the naked, headless bodies of its fallen members. Some climb the side of the house, while others peel off in the opposite direction. Following their trajectory, Skwisgaar sees a ribbon of smoke emerging from the treetops behind the house. “ _Toki:_ ” He pulls away and runs to the edge of the roof. “ _The girls._ ” 

From the air, he can see the gray mass rolling through the dense forest like a low fog. Snow sticks to his hair and feathers as he squints into the freezing wind. Sailing ahead of them, he spies the campsite a few kilometers outside the concrete barricade, and dives like a falcon between the dark evergreens. 

Lightning splashes from his feet when he lands, scattering the birds and varmints. The girls have built a campfire and fashioned a lean-to out of fallen timbers, thatched with brooms of emerald spruce needles. A striped wool blanket forms their bed. The smaller one screams, as ponytail goes for her gun, but before they can attack him again, he kneels and pulls them into his arms, shielding them with his wings against the coming stampede. He preempts their resistance, pouring the light into them until they cling to him with sudden trust. Behind him, Toki heads off the meat puppets, smashing their skulls against the trees. 

“Vänta,” he tells the girls. “Holds on.” Hooking them under the arms, he scoops them up and lifts them high into the air. Their boots dangle as the canopy of evergreens recedes below them, small hands fisted in his gore-soaked sweatshirt, their faces hidden against either side of his neck.

When they land in the courtyard, the girls scramble to secure the gate as Skwisgaar brains a few stragglers against the sandstone driveway. He stands, panting and dripping among the pile of bodies, as they turn to face him. 

“Nous sommes en présence d’un Ange.” Ponytail drops to her knees in the snow, crossing herself and nudging her sister to follow suit. 

He shakes his head, staggering numbly towards them. You’re so much braver than I am, he wants to tell them. Don’t look at me like that. But he doesn’t have the words.

“ _Run!_ ” Toki calls down to them, as the horde pours over the concrete barricade, letting the barbed wire tear their hands and knees. Their ranks are thin, but the are undeterred, mindlessly fighting until the very last. The are nothing but the physical embodiment of vengeance, the Half Man’s bottomless hatred made flesh. 

The girls bolt towards the house, but Skwisgaar freezes, falling to his knees before the violet dagger poised above his head. A disembodied voice fills his mind from every direction, drowning out his thoughts. I see you, it echoes. I know where you are. Now hold still for me, ‘Darling,’ while I take your whore heart. He watches, transfixed, as the semilucent glass tip catches the light, flashing almost pink.

The trance shatters as the dagger plunges into Toki’s forearm, thrown up in its path to protect him. He shrinks with horror as Toki decapitates the last remaining meat puppet, the shaft of violet crystal still embedded in his bluish flesh. 

Guilt and shame gut him, and he coughs again, clutching his empty stomach. The phantom sensation of their groping hands makes his whole body shake with revulsion. He feels like a coward. He feels like dead weight, like a stupid pretty ornament that Toki is charged with guarding. He feels like a filthy whore. He feels like a selfish baby for liking it, for wanting to be ‘kept’ in such a way. Who told you you deserved to be treated like a fucking princess? Where did you get the idea you were so precious? The itchy layer of blood, and sweat, and grime covering him is suddenly so unbearable, that for a moment he thinks it really might be easier to just rip his entire skin off and grow a new one, rather than attempting to clean it. 

Shoulders heaving, Toki collapses in the mud in front of him. 

“ _I’m sorry—_ ” Skwisgaar gasps, reaching for his arm. 

“ _I’ve got you,_ ” says Toki, pulling him close. “ _Don’t be sorry._ ” 

The slush soaks their shins as they kneel on the ground, mindlessly nuzzling each other for ages. A warm bass line presses his sternum, a rich, propulsive rhythm passage lifting his heart. Don’t listen to Him, Darling. Toki’s instrumental voice floods his mind, rising above the chorus of cruelties. You deserve to feel safe. You deserve to feel safe. You deserve to feel safe. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


They strip the hardwood paneling from the dining room and use it to board up the windows. They rekindle the fire and sweep up the glass. They roll the bodies onto a plastic tarp they find in the garage and deposit them deep in the woods, doing as many trips as it takes. Emma and Lea were living here before them; It’s the least they can do to clean up.

Around noon, they climb in through the second story balcony and start preparing a bath. Big, sugary flurries stick to the window, glazing over the blood soaked courtyard. The white sun is at the top of its arc. They were supposed to have flown north hours ago. 

They strip off their soiled clothes, burning them in the fireplace of the master bedroom while they wait for the water to heat up. When the tub is full, they climb in and set to work carefully scrubbing each other in silence. They stand in the shower stall, rinsing off the dirty suds and wrapping each other in fluffy towels. 

Skwisgaar brushes and rebrushes his teeth, spitting blood into the sink, while Toki hunches over the counter, staring critically into the gap between his radius and humerus. The wound isn’t closing, and it isn’t responding to Skwisgaar’s healing power. There’s no gore, just a kind of blue static, like he’s a glitching hologram, and at this glimpse of what he’s made of, his brow scrunches with despair. 

“ _Does it hurt?_ ” Skwisgaar probes gently, watching him wrap the bloodless wound in a roll of white gauze. 

“ _Only a little, now._ ” Toki frowns. “ _It hurt a lot more when it happened._ ” He flexes his fret hand, trying to tap each fingertip against his thumb. “ _I can’t—_ ” He sags against the counter. “ _I’m not gonna be able to play like this. Not well enough for you._ ” 

Before he can sink too far, Skwisgaar catches him. “ _It’s okay,_ ” he says, gathering Toki’s warm weight into his lap as they sit back on the rim of the tub. “ _Don’t worry._ ” He kisses Toki’s knuckles. “ _We’ll fix it._ ” 

Clean and dry, they climb into the giant bed, thread their limbs around each other, and begin to weep. Skwisgaar closes his eyes and inhales Toki’s scent, trying to blot out the world— But it’s not the same. They were ripped from each other’s arms as they slept, just like in one of his nightmares. Lying in Toki’s arms was the ultimate comfort, the ultimate sense of security— And now, that’s been taken away from him. Their peaceful time of rest could be snatched away again at any moment. 

“ _I’ll keep my eyes open,_ ” Toki says, clutching him tighter. “ _I’ll never sleep again. I don’t even really need it._ ”

“ _No._ ” Skwisgaar shakes his head against the pillow, rejecting this out of hand. To ask Toki to forgo his simulated sleep, one of the barest physical comforts he has fought so hard to give himself, would be unthinkable. “ _You do need it. You need rest._ ”

“ _But I have to protect you,_ ” says Toki. “ _I- I have to—_ ”

“ _And I have to protect you. I have to protect your sanity._ ” Skwisgaar strokes his scalp, tilting his head back until their eyes meet. “ _Look at me:_ ” he says. “ _It’s actually really fucking important for you to keep your brain healthy, and like, maintain some sort of basic quality of life. Like, really important. For the actual God of Death to not go crazy from sleep deprivation._ ” 

“ _Okay,_ ” Toki relents. His mouth trembles. “ _I just— Whatever you want me to do._ ” 

“ _I want you to be okay,_ ” says Skwisgaar. He rubs their noses together, grinning. “ _I want you to treat me like the precious treasure I am, of course. And I want you to help me save the world. But before any of that… I want you to be okay._ ” 

There’s nothing he’ll miss about the mansion more than this enormous bed. Pressed tightly from hips to collar bones, they slide under the covers, drinking each other in. Bonding brings the flood of endorphins he craves, despite this morning’s fresh trauma. Maybe they just need to hold on tighter. Maybe they can train their bodies to lock so tightly together in sleep, that no one will be able to pry them apart.

The bonding is different, now that they’ve stopped trying to conceal their pain and fear from one another. It has a richer polyphonic texture, an almost orchestral depth. He melts into the smooth, mineral-scented skin, toes curling at the hug of Toki’s wing around his flanks and back. Enveloped in lush vibrations, he feels both safer and more vulnerable at the same time.

“ _Hey,_ ” he says. “ _Is this… doable? Are you… reasonably happy? I mean, fuck today. But like, in general?_ ”

Toki’s chest rumbles. “ _Yeah._ ”

He reaches for the seam of Toki’s wing, drawing out a delicious purr. It’s a miracle to hear and feel his pleasure. Toki is a miracle.

“ _Is there anything we could be doing to make it better?_ ” he asks, playing with the soft feathers under his hand. Shampoo makes them wonderfully buoyant and fluffy. 

“ _What? My- My ‘quality of life?’_ ” Toki laughs. “ _I just wanna not be completely alone and in horrible pain for all eternity. S’not a high bar._ ”

“ _But I wanna give you more than that._ ” Skwisgaar cups his shoulder blades, pressing into the hum in his chest. “ _There’s gotta be, I don’t know… ways, right?_ ”

Toki’s eyelids flutter as he loses himself in the druglike vibration. “ _I guess with you, anything’s possible,_ ” he sighs.

“ _What do you really feel?_ ” Skwisgaar asks. “ _I wish I understood it better._ ”

“ _Well…_ ” Toki thinks. “ _I feel a version of things. Like, an echo of what they really are, maybe. It’s all through a kind of filter. Like I’m not… totally here, on the same plane._ ” Bronze lashes flick towards his arm. “ _Like I’m a ghost._ ”

“ _But you’re not; You’re completely solid._ ”

He shrugs in Skwisgaar’s grip. “ _I feel solid_ _now,_ " he says. _"I feel solid when you touch me._ ”

They nap for an hour or two, until the ground is thick with snow, and the air is clear, and they can’t justify delaying any longer. Toki raids the walk-in closet for some new sweatpants, and sets to work modifying a pair of quarter-zip fleeces to accommodate their wings. They’re hefty and well-made, and give them a sort of preppy, ski lodge look that Skwisgaar is surprised to really like. You know you’re getting old as a Scandinavian when the guy on the _Norlender_ catalogue starts to look kind of cool. Once dressed, they braid each other’s hair, in order to keep it out of their faces during the long flight. 

Before they leave, Toki pauses in front of the nightstand, weighing the violet dagger in his palm. Usually, nothing puts a scratch on him, but it pierced his stone arm like it was soft clay. The glassy substance lacks the brittleness of crystal, its structure hinting at extraordinary subatomic complexity. Something He designed for them? Some sort of special, anti-god weapon? Skwisgaar says nothing as Toki slips the dagger into his pocket, figuring he’s earned the right to keep it. 

Downstairs, they don their guitars, and Skwisgaar grabs his knapsack from the corner. Emma is seated on the hearthstone, cleaning her rifle, while Lea sprawls on the floor, playing with the sewing kit Toki left open on the dining room table. She hops up when they enter, tucking her hair behind her ears and gesturing for Skwisgaar to give her his wrist. 

He chuckles as she fits him with a hand-knotted, rainbow rope bracelet made from embroidery floss. From what he knows of the arcane rituals of little girls, he could hardly be more honored. 

Toki flinches, surprised to receive his own bracelet. Satisfied that the briefest brush of his skin has caused her no harm, he turns his wrist in shy delight, admiring the colors. 

“Adjö,” Skwisgaar smiles at them, lowering his wings in what he hopes is a chivalrous manner. 

“Adieu,” Emma echoes. She sets down the oiled bolt and magazine, and lifts her grease-tipped fingers in a pair of devil horns. “Dethklok.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_Winter, 2011_

_Hey. It’s been a while. But I’m back, you piece of shit._

_When you see Mom again, tell her I’m sorry._

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

There’s a fjord on the Arctic coast of Greenland which once housed the northernmost radio outpost in the world; But the Brønlundhus research station, built in 1947 as part of the Danish Peary Land Expedition, has been out of commission since 1996, making it the northernmost ruin in the world.

They’ve been in the air for three days when they decide to land and take shelter, shaking the hoar frost from their wings. The rust red building stands out against the fluorescent blueblack sky. There’s nothing else but frozen desert in every direction, for as far as the eye can see— Which granted, isn’t terribly far, due to the 24/7 night of Arctic winter. 

A heavy door slams shut behind them, muffling the howling polar wind. Inside, they find a bare pantry, a propane stove, a lavatory, a narrow sleep nook, and a central cabin filled with spooky antique research equipment. It’s pitch black, but their bodies provide faint illumination. Toki fumbles in the dark for an emergency candle and matches, finding them too damp to strike, and Skwisgaar pinches the wick, lighting it with the tips of his fingers. Their breath clouds the air. The yellow flicker throws gangling black shadows against the walls of the cabin. According to a mercury thermometer above the door, it’s about thirty degrees below zero. 

It’s crazy to think that humans put this structure here, in such a remote, uninhabitable location. Those intrepid little goofballs. Skwisgaar never thought much of mankind while he was one of them, but now that he’s looking at them from the outside, he can’t help but find their antics endearing. The thought of that adventurous, creative spark being snuffed out forever makes his heart hurt. Birds migrate, too. Birds make music. But it’s not the same. 

Lighting a ring of candles, he spreads the atlas open on the lab counter and traces their route with the cap of his marker. They’re in Peary Land, Greenland, the northernmost coastline on earth, a comb of fjords that sinks its teeth into the Arctic Ocean. This is where he learns about the history of Brønlundhus station. He sounds out the English text, hunting for cognates. A good thing so many navigation terms are of Viking origin. ‘North’ means nord. ‘Land’ means land. ‘Radio station’ means radiostation. With a little effort, he can struggle through it.

“ _We’re off course,_ ” he mutters. 

Warm arms close around his middle, furred chin peering over his shoulder from behind. 

He squints at the flickering page. Birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to guide them across vast distances; The best he can do is a manmade map. 

“ _We need to follow the polar jet stream,_ ” he says, mostly to himself. The plastic cap rasps over the glossy paper. Svalbard is a thousand kilometers east of here, and a little to the south.

A soft cross-rhythm massages his back. Rest now, chart later. It’s hard to resist. 

There’s an analog watch on the counter. They should try winding it up. The 24/7 night makes it even harder to keep track of time. Exhausted as they are, they can’t afford to linger here. His fingers close around the freezing steel of the watch case. But Toki cheats, stimulating the bundle of nerves along the seam of his wing. The rush of oxytocin makes his capitulation almost inevitable. 

His bones are sore, voice cracked from days of disuse. Snow-damp fabric sticks to his clammy skin. His head nods, and firm hands peel him away from the counter, a rivulet of dark energy whispering over the candles to put out the flames. An objection melts into a yawn in his chest. Sleepy, light-headed, and hungry, he is easy for the hands to maneuver. There’s nothing to eat here, but at least they can rest. The guilty, panicked conviction that they should be at Svalbard yesterday, and the intoxicating pull of Toki’s warmth battle for control of his mind. 

The hands retreat, and his throat makes a faint, involuntary mewl. The cold is unpleasant enough as it is, but wet skin lends an extra sting. They strip off their damp clothes and hang them from a line above the stove to dry, and he stands naked and shivering as Toki rummages in the dark. The punishing temperature won’t kill him, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Toki’s warmth calls to him, guiding him through an elliptical metal hatch. He ducks his head and folds his wings. Beyond the threshold, warm arms receive him again, and his chest purrs with relief.

They climb into the narrow sleep nook, huddling together on a small foam mattress under a stack of polyester blankets and rubbing away the cold. It’s been too long since their last full-contact cuddling session, and it takes them a moment to harmonize, re-learning each other’s contours. 

The blankets don’t really cover their wings, which dangle off either side of the mattress. Still, it’s a relief to be out of the elements. There’s something so intimate about being this far from civilization, surrounded on all sides by howling polar desert, in a place where pretty much no one can find them. They both generate a lot of body heat, which the polyester fleece is designed to conserve especially well. 

He remembers early on, when Toki asked, shyly, whether he was still warm to the touch. It was a pleasant surprise for him to learn that he and Skwisgaar were pretty much the same temperature. They both run a lot hotter than humans, which probably has something to do with the fact that they’re constantly generating electromagnetic radiation. In some ways, they’re perfect opposites, but in others, they’re clearly the same species. 

Which means, so is He, Skwisgaar muses. He must have had wings and everything, before He got all fucked up. He’s like, the _Faces of Meth_ version of whatever they are. 

Existential despair: Not even once. 

The sounds of the tundra roll over him as he settles in, his nose poking Toki’s shoulder. Somewhere, beyond the cobalt horizon, a snow fox tracks an Arctic hare that subsists on crowberry, and lichens, and cold desert shrubs. The hare will even feast on the stomach contents of dead caribou, if it gets the chance. Nothing is wasted here, in this harsh wilderness at the top of the world. 

“ _I can feel you composing,_ ” says Toki.

Skwisgaar pauses. “ _Really?_ ” He wouldn’t even rate what he was doing as ‘composing.’ Just absently moving the fragments of a melody around in his mind. 

The blankets ruffle as someone’s wing (it’s not clear whose) gives an unconscious twitch. Toki turns, loosened braid draping diagonally across his chest. “ _The way you think about music blows me away,_ ” he says, thumbing the side of Skwisgaar’s face. Their eyes meet, incandescing in the dark, and Toki’s smile is so unnaturally wide that it looks like he’s about to burst into tears. But he doesn’t. “ _Your mind is so beautiful,_ ” he says, instead. “ _You’re so beautiful, inside and out._ ”

Pressure fills Skwisgaar’s sinuses, and he ducks to hide his glowing face. “ _I don’t really know what to say to that,_ ” he mumbles. 

“ _You don’t have to say anything,_ ” Toki laughs. “ _I just can’t believe how lucky I am. I can’t believe I really get to lie here, holding the radiant center of the whole universe in my arms._ ”

Skwisgaar shakes his head. “ _I’m not… that._ ” He laughs, flustered. “ _I’m not._ ” 

The cold touch of the watch face shocks his arm. It’s caught somewhere between them. “ _Listen,_ ” he says, fishing under the covers. He winds the watch, feeling the mechanism come to life in his hands, and snaps his fingers to provide a split second of light. “ _It’s set to 12:45 now,_ ” he says, tucking the watch under his pillow. “ _We leave in eight hours. Don’t let me forget._ ” He kisses Toki’s brow.

“ _Okay,_ ” Toki concedes, with an audible pout.

A key change. Amusement lightens Skwisgaar’s chest, and he comes in for a kiss on the mouth, reaching around to massage Toki’s scapular grooves. Dense back muscles, added to the physique to support wings, leap beneath his fingertips. “ _Do you have a sweet spot right there?_ ” he whispers. “ _Like me?_ ”

Toki makes a muted noise of confirmation, blue glow rising in his skin. Of course, Skwisgaar knows this already. The same knot of nerves that triggers a rush of endorphins in him when stimulated is operative in Toki. They are the same.

“ _You know, I’ve tried doing it to myself, but it doesn’t work. It’s like how you can’t tickle yourself… Or suck your own dick,_ ” he laughs. “ _You need someone else to do it._ ” What a devious design. Nature put this happiness button on them, but made it so they need the other one to press it. 

An adaptation, perhaps, to create mutual dependency. Are they more mutually dependent then their predecessors? Is the pattern trying to keep them together, to avoid the mistakes of the past? Their pair bonding behavior is, if not exactly compulsory, certainly overdetermined. 

“ _Are you hard?_ ” he asks rhetorically, as if he could misread the erection poking his thigh.

Toki shifts closer. “ _Yeah._ ” His breath is short. Heat blooms between them, and Skwisgaar can feel his own body responding in kind.

There’s something freeing about becoming such an instinct-driven creature; Their desires are so close to the surface, not buried under layers of human legerdemain. Old Skwisgaar would have been mortified by the constant affection seeking, but not being able to help himself, he gets to enjoy it without reservation.

“ _Are you…?_ ” His heart flutters. “ _Oh, Toki. Are you really turned on right now?_ ”

Pressured breaths puff against his neck. “ _Yeah._ ”

“ _What did I do differently this time?_ ” he asks, coasting gentle fingers over Toki’s spine. 

“ _I don’t know,_ ” Toki whimpers. “ _Please, just—_ ” His body twists, glowing bright. It’s rare for him to be turned on like this. Achieving an erection is simple, mechanical; But it’s rare for him to go all sensitive and pleading. Something happens sometimes, the waveform crunches. The gap between full, living sensation, and whatever ghostly echo he normally experiences shortens, and the signal pierces through. “ _Ohfuck—_ ” he says. “ _I feel— It’s almost—_ _It’s so good. It’s almost the full—_ ” 

“ _I wanna learn,_ ” Skwisgaar says, growing urgent, “ _so I can do this to you more often. What triggers it?_ ” He searches Toki’s ecstasy-bent face. “ _Does rubbing under your wings help?_ ”

“ _I don’t know. Nnnh— Nnnnnhhhh— I don’t know._ ”

“ _What do you want me to do?_ ”

“ _Anything— Please, just,_ ” says Toki. His hips roll. “ _Make it last, will you?_ ”

“ _Ok,_ ” Skwisgaar kisses. He presses one hand between Toki’s clenched shoulder blades, and rests the other on his burning chest. 

He’s had sex partners with physical difficulties before, and it used to be a point of pride with him that he could show them a good time anyway. Sussing out people’s turn ons and learning to make the best of whatever they were working with was always one of his particular skills, and one of his favorite things about sex: The exploration, the challenge— and above all, the opportunity to show off. 

He traces the meridian of Toki’s torso, plunging his hand under the covers.

“ _Nnnnnnuuuuuhhhh…_ ” 

“ _Yeah?_ ” He smiles in satisfaction, his fingers retreating into the mat of soft, dark hair. Thick legs kick and pummel him as he teasingly combs Toki’s pubic bone. The aluminum walls of the capsule creak. 

“ _Oh!_ ”

“ _What was it they used to say?_ ” he drawls. He gives a couple of generous strokes, using his other hand to press golden heat into the small of Toki’s back, before letting go again. “‘ _Once in a generation talent?’_ ”

Toki tries to rub against his leg and Skwisgaar grabs him by the hips, forcing him still. He bobs like a pendulum, hitting nothing but thin air. 

“ _What do you think?_ ”

“ _Please—_ ”

“ _Most talented fingers of all time?_ ”

“ _Fuckingplease!_ ”

“ _Would that be saying too much?_ ” With as much dignity as he can manage, Skwisgaar spits into his palm. Lifting his pelvis, he lines them up side by side and sheathes his large hand around them both. “ _I don’t know,_ ” he grunts, working them slowly against each other, his other hand still caressing Toki’s hip. “ _I think it’s pretty fair._ ” 

“ _Ffffffffffffaaaaaahhhhhhhhoooohhmygod—!_ ”

Skwisgaar’s laugh turns into a gasp as Toki’s hands squeeze the backs of his thighs, hiking his legs up around Toki’s hips. He feels dizzily, deliciously wanted, skin buzzing under Toki’s hands. A mouthful of beard is followed by a proper kiss.

“ _Don’t— Stop— Don’t you dare._ ” Toki kneads his ass, pulling him close so that he can’t tease again. The vibe is a little harshed by the evident weakness in Toki’s injured arm. Still, the fantasy of being ravished by the invincible God of Death is fun to play at. 

“ _You said you wanted me to make it last,_ ” he smirks, bouncing on Toki’s lap.

Fuck what I said, Toki thinks, beyond words. Flood beam eyes roll back in his head as the energy builds between them. 

Skwisgaar leans into the feeling and picks up the pace, heart pounding in a complicated 7/4 time. Their foreheads touch, Toki’s mind sobbing with grateful hunger. This is such a treat for him. His nerves are singing. There’s got to be a way to replicate it, Skwisgaar thinks, critically eyeing his own technique. A bead of sweat drips from his hairline down the side of his face as he watches his own golden hands. 

The feeling peaks, but he doesn’t stop, cradling Toki’s back and stroking him through. Being so out of touch this past year has been bad for a lot of reasons, but one he didn’t even consider is that it’s made him uncharacteristically passive during sex. It’s been too long since he’s had the wherewithal to really _perform_ , to sexually serenade someone the way he used to. Of course, being with Toki is different; They are specially made for each other, and there’s more instinct than practice involved. But that’s no license for lazy lovemaking. His perfect mate deserves the famous Skwisgaar Skwigelf treatment.

“ _Ohwow._ ” Toki falls, breathless and satisfied, against the foam mattress.

Reaching for a shelf on the wall above them, Skwisgaar grabs a spare pillow case to towel them off. “ _Was that good?_ ” he asks. With all that’s been happening lately, he could use a little ego boost. He tosses the pillow case on the floor and pulls Toki close, ready to enjoy the afterglow. 

“ _Ohwow, ohwow,_ ” Toki repeats, his beard tickling Skwisgaar’s chest. “ _It’s not even gone yet,_ ” he marvels, inhaling deeply. “ _Usually, it fades away after I. After I come. But it’s not even gone._ ” 

Their heartbeats slow. The glow of their bodies dims as they relax, leaving them in perfect darkness. Sweat cools on his skin, and Skwisgaar shivers, adjusting the covers around them to trap more heat. Finding a comfortable position, he closes his eyes and pets Toki’s back with slow, rhythmic strokes. The watch ticks under his pillow. 

“ _Thank you,_ ” Toki sighs. “ _This is so special._ ” Skwisgaar can feel his smile. 

His heart stings. He wants Toki to be able to enjoy the cuddling, afterwards. He always said it was his favorite part. There just has to be a way to give him more, more often. Their legs tangle, forming a pocket of warmth under the covers. The freezing air prickles the tips of their ears. 

“ _I don’t want you to think I don’t enjoy what we usually do,_ ” Toki protests. Regaining his strength, he shifts closer. His good arm hugs Skwisgaar tightly, while the bandaged one drapes across his side. “ _The… echo, that I feel. It’s not nothing. For me, it’s everything. It’s what my life is, mostly._ ” 

His smiling cheek rolls over Skwisgaar’s sternum, savoring every measure. “ _But this—_ ” His breath catches. “ _This is so much more than I— Oh, thank you. Thank you so much._ ” He trembles, eyelashes fluttering, head bowing in prayer. “ _I was born so cursed,_ ” he pronounces, “ _and you’ve made me so blessed. If I could just have this feeling— Just a taste of this feeling, every once in a while—_ ” His nose draws meaningless letters on Skwisgaar’s skin. “ _This is enough for me to live for. Enough to keep going. This makes everything else bearable._ ”

“ _You deserve this,_ ” Skwisgaar says to the crown of his skull. “ _You deserve to feel good._ ” Rocking and purring, he lavishes attention on Toki’s sculpted back and sleek wings. He’s determined to give as much as possible, while the veil between Toki and the world is thin. Giving pleasure to such a cursed being is holy work. He feels like Sigyn, holding the bowl of venom over Loki’s head. He finally understands that kind of love. 

“ _This is so cozy,_ ” Toki whispers. A giddy hypermeter resonates his upper torso, and he reaches under Skwisgaar’s arms, trying to mimic the rhythmic petting. His bandaged arm is off the beat. 

“ _Mmmmn,_ ” Skwisgaar agrees. Blunt nails groom his flossy down feathers. The watch ticks under his pillow like a metronome, setting the tempo for his syncopated dreams. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Morning doesn’t come. He’s confused at first, to find himself alone in the dark, until he remembers that polar night lasts half the year. Shivering, he throws one of the fleece blankets around his shoulders and climbs out of bed, the cold linoleum floor shocking his bare feet. A partially-raveled braid swings between his tucked wings as he walks the narrow hallway in total blackness. The blanket drags behind him like a cape, whispering over the tiles.

He shuffles into the main cabin to find Toki’s silhouette leaning against the counter, inspecting the wound in his arm. Starlight fills the plastic windows. When he squints, he can just make out the ribbon of white gauze bunched in the crook of Toki’s elbow. The blue wound glows in the dark, a vertical gap about six centimeters long and three centimeters wide down the middle of his forearm. It still doesn’t seem like it’s healing. 

Toki looks up, apparently surprised to see him. The injured arm curls against his belly. Black wings fluff, his posture recovering from a moment of despair Skwisgaar wasn’t supposed to witness. “ _Hi,_ ” he says. His face is in shadow, but there’s a watery smile in his voice. 

Skwisgaar sets the watch down on the counter. “ _Why didn’t you wake me up?_ ” he asks, cinching the blanket around himself. “ _It’s like 10:15_.” His teeth are chattering. Though it’s purely psychosomatic, he feels their lack of coffee. 

“ _Oh._ ” The silhouette shrinks. “ _Sorry. I forgot._ ” 

They shouldn’t have slept here. They’ve wasted enough time. As soon as they knew where they were, they should have plotted a new course and taken off.

Skwisgaar sighs. Steeling himself against the cold, he drops the blanket and stretches his wings. He’s determined to reach Svalbard by midnight. Grabbing their air dry clothes from the line above the stove, he tosses a bundle at Toki’s chest. 

They dress in silence, raking out their tangled hair and giving each other fresh braids. Toki hunches away to furtively rewrap his wound. The quarter-zip pullover sits in a bunched loop around his neck, with only a black tank top beneath it. 

New guilt tugs at Skwisgaar’s guts. He didn’t mean to sound so short about the time. Taking Toki by the wrist, he kisses the skin above the bandage and guides the arm into a sleeve. “ _How are you feeling?_ ” he asks. 

Toki’s other hand wiggles into its sleeve, and Skwisgaar unrolls the hem of the fleece over his belly. “ _Good,_ ” says Toki. “ _Except for. Ya know._ ” The bad arm dangles at his side. 

“ _Right._ ” Skwisgaar reaches around to fit Toki’s wings into the eyelets and secure the zippers underneath. His hands pause at Toki’s hips. 

“ _Last night was._ ”

“ _Yeah?_ ”

Toki tilts his chin. “ _Really good._ ”

“ _Pffft—_ _You know it._ ” 

“ _I mean._ ” His posture thaws, a deep breath lowering his shoulders. “ _Really, really a lot. Like, the best I’ve felt since before this whole thing started._ ” 

“ _Oh, yeah?_ ” Skwisgaar grins, a joyful lick jarring his heart. Suddenly, he feels a lot better about having spent the night here, in a secluded radio outpost at the edge of the habited world. Maybe they’re not just wasting time; Maybe they’re making progress. Loosening the confines of Toki’s harsh existence.

“ _We’ve gotta figure you out,_ ” he says, more to himself than to Toki. He knuckles Toki’s sides, lips pressing in concentration. “ _I know we could be doing more for you, if we knew more about how your body worked._ ” In a perverse way, which he won’t vocalize, the puzzle appeals to him. The discipline and technique of it all. The pulling apart and putting back together of what they are. 

Toki fidgets. “ _I don’t really like to think about it._ ” 

“ _But it’s important to understand your body. I mean,_ ” Skwisgaar says gently, “ _you’re gonna be in there for a long, long time._ ”

“ _I know,_ ” Toki sighs. The good hand fiddles with one of the zippers under Skwisgaar’s wing. “ _You’re right. I’m just not very good at facing things. I know it’s stupid._ ” 

“ _No…_ ” Skwisgaar hugs him. “ _You’re doing so well; You’ve been staying really healthy._ ” He kisses Toki’s cheek. “ _I’m so proud of you._ ” 

They hold each other in the middle of the cabin, swaying slightly. 

“ _I’m? I’m staying healthy?_ ” Toki blinks, eyes flickering in the dark. “ _That’s… that’s good. I like that._ ”

“ _Of course it’s good._ ” 

“ _No, I mean, I like that you said it that way._ ” His weight shifts, turning them in a sort of tempo-less waltz. “ _‘Staying healthy.’ That sounds a lot more doable than ‘trying not to turn evil.’ It’s not as all-or-nothing. And it doesn’t make it sound like I’m a monster. Like I’m evil just for existing._ ” 

Skwisgaar bristles. The fact that Toki was raised to believe such things about himself makes him want to scream. But screaming won’t help. “ _The Stoics would say, the good is the good is the good,_ ” he offers, instead. “ _It’s all one good. ‘Everything begins with self-mastery. When you’re in pain, you hurt others. To be good, you must first be well.'_ ”

Cold toes prod as Toki stands on the tops of his feet to kiss him. “ _I do,_ ” Toki says, “ _I do wanna be well. Thanks for calling it that. It sounds so much nicer._ ” Features quivering, he searches Skwisgaar’s eyes and reluctantly peels himself away. “ _We should go,_ ” he says. “ _I don’t wanna make us any later._ ”

The analog watch is tossed into the knapsack, along with the atlas and felt tip pen. Kitted out with their guitars and other belongings, they leave Brønlundhus station and step out into the roaring tundra.

The frozen ground stings. He finds that minor physical discomforts bother him more, now that he’s stopped regularly checking out of his own body. But staying present, he’s decided, is a matter of urgency. 

Spreading his wings, he searches the throbbing blueblack sky for Orion’s Belt, which should lead them due east towards the Prime Meridian. If they can catch a ride on the polar jet stream, they should arrive at their destination in less than twelve hours. He moves to take off, but Toki is distracted by something on the ground. 

“ _Saxifraga!_ ” Toki chirps, delighted. 

“ _Eh?_ ” Skwisgaar looks down, a sea of tiny pink and purple flowers pouring from the fallow earth at his glowing golden feet.

“ _We have them in Norway. They’re called saxifraga, the stone breaker, because the roots can grow through stone._ ”

He watches as Toki stoops to pick one, cradling the delicate jewellike blossom in the palm of his hand. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere, but he’s inclined to leave the poetry to Nathan. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


The air is thin thousands of meters above sea level, ice crystals forming on their feathers as they are blasted by the elements. Flying long distance under such extreme conditions is taxing, not least because it’s so tedious. For one thing, they can’t talk to each other, because their voices don’t carry up here; At least, not their human voices. Their eerie, wordless, angel voices, issued from the birdlike vocal organ in their chests, are designed to carry through the atmosphere, allowing them to communicate simple directions, signals, and warnings. 

More often though, they sing to each other, just to keep each other company and pass the time. Surrounding them is a veil of mist, interrupted by the occasional burst of atmospheric lighting. Above them, giant pale-green stars. Below them, the wrinkled expanse of the sea. 

When at last landfall approaches, Skwisgaar takes a sudden dive, crowing with excitement at the sight of icebergs bobbing in the dark water like chucks of white styrofoam. Exhaustion and boredom lift, filling him with urgent purpose, and he flies low, letting his bare feet skim the freezing waves. 

Along the inner coast of Isfjorden Bay, lies the coal mining settlement of Longyearbyen, its dock lights cutting through the silver fog. Three rows of handsome, brightly painted little houses, and a few administrative buildings, sit tucked in a postcard-pretty valley, looking like toys against the whiteness of the snow. Square windows glow with buttery light. Chimneys puff tails of cheerful smoke. It looks like the sort of place American Santa Claus might live. 

Skwisgaar runs the last few meters across the surface of the water, tucking his wings as solid ground appears beneath his feet. As far as he can see, there’s no one outside, but they’re probably just indoors because of the cold. His heart is pounding. The horde haven’t been here yet. They haven’t reached every last far-flung corner of Earth. 

Toki lands a beat later, shaking the frost from his wings. “ _Is this—?_ ”

“ _This is it,_ ” says Skwisgaar, glancing around. It didn’t even occur to him that they might have power on Svalbard, but of course, the settlement provides its own electricity. Seeing the signs of habitation makes him realize that he wasn’t at all prepared to find the place empty. For all his guilt and worry about leaving her here, he has never, at any point during their journey, absorbed the possibility that he might not find his mother alive. 

Warm fingers skim the back of his arm as Toki senses him thinking about her. 

He breaks into a run, half-gliding as his feet occasionally touch the ground. The familiar melody of her has caught his ear, airy and capricious like a hummingbird, a twinkling, silver sound. It must be her, alive and well. It must be, because if it’s not… 

He lands on the doorstep of one of the little gingerbread houses; A yolk yellow one at the end of the row. He can feel Toki’s eye’s on his back as he approaches the door, stiff fingers forming a slow fist. He knocks twice, fluffing his feathers, as if to make himself presentable. 

It must be her. It couldn’t be anyone else, that song. 

A light turns on in the front window, and he can hear the sounds of someone shuffling around, inside. He knocks again, impatient. A tall woman appears in the doorway. He blinks at her, and she mouths ‘oh.’ 

For a second, his heart plummets. He doesn’t recognize this woman. She stares back at him, eye to eye, like a mirror. He thought she would have yellow hair, like him. That’s what he remembers. He thought they would look the same. 

Before he can say anything, she scoops him up into her arms, landing her head on his shoulder. Standing a couple of steps down from her makes them the same height. Her song fills his senses, and he can have no more doubt: It really is her. Really alive, in this place.

Speechless, he clutches her against him, folding his wings around them both. The very oldest part of him cries out for her. He can feel her heartbeat. He can smell the oil of her skin. He can sense Toki watching them from the shadows: Uncomfortable, vaguely jealous, careful not to intrude. A minute ago, he was maybe going to apologize, or attempt to explain. But all he can do now is hold onto her, bathing her in healing light, as everything else falls away.

“ _My baby,_ ” she says. 

At the sound of her voice, his memory explodes open. He can hear her at the piano. Singing to herself in the shower. Screaming at his grandmother on the phone in the kitchen. The dull roar of her blow dryer. The swish of the plastic pages of her modeling portfolio. The scrape of the wooden spoon against the sides of the bowl when she was making _kladdkaka_. The zip of the rewind button on the tape deck in her car. The smoke alarm, when she burned the _kladdkaka_. The beep of her answering machine. The long, rambling messages that meant she wasn’t going to be home to make him dinner. Listening to the hum of the condenser coils while staring into an empty refrigerator. Muffling his ears with a pillow at the thundering of a man’s voice on the other side of the wall. The click of her favorite shoes. The score to her favorite movie. Her low, chesty laugh. The way she would whisper good night to him. The wordless tune she used to console him with when he was very small. 

The symphony of this human childhood washes over him, and he feels some missing piece of himself click back into place. He never stopped being that person, completely. It’s just that now, he is both that person and something else. He feels saner, knowing this. The gaps in his memory feel less like wounds. 

“ _Look at you,_ ” she says. Her fingers card his feathers in disbelief. “ _My angel baby. My Little Dove._ ” 

How does she know to pet his wings like that? How does she know how deeply affectionate and soothing that feels to him? Maybe she’s just drawn to their novelty. But to his body it feels like pure maternal love. Like something a hen would do for one of its chicks. He is momentarily overwhelmed by it. 

“ _I missed you,_ ” he rasps. His sinuses burn. “ _I’m sorry it took me so long to find you._ ”

Serveta takes a step back so she can look at him again, and he studies her in turn. Of course, one can hardly visit the salon during the apocalypse. It seems obvious, but he didn’t even think of these things, when he was trying to picture her. She’s wearing a dark blue utility suit, like a coal miner, under an open-front Norwegain sweater, and a pair of men’s composite-toe work boots. Her lined face is free of makeup, and her fluorescent white hair is pulled back in an intricate braided knot. 

“ _I thought there might be some warning!_ ” she laughs. “ _I thought maybe you’d come down in the middle of the aurora, or something like that. I didn’t expect you to just knock on my door one day like a ‘regular jackoff.’_ ”

He smiles, feeling more like himself by the minute. “ _I have a gift for understatement._ ” 

“ _Pffft!_ ” she scoffs. 

Her eyes widen as she catches sight of Toki over his shoulder for the first time. Maybe it’s just because she had some prior warning of what to expect, but she does a remarkable job of concealing her fear. “ _Toki! I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced._ ” Her hand extends through the doorway into the cold night air, her shortened fingernails looking naked without polish.

Toki stares at the hand, stepping into the trapezoid of light. “ _Hi,_ ” he says. “ _Um. I mean. We actually have met before…_ ”

The hand jabs at him again. “ _Not properly,_ ” she insists. 

He gives Skwisgaar a pleading look. “ _Well, um. Okay,_ ” he says. His wings bristle as he briefly takes the hand, Lea’s rainbow rope bracelet dangling from his wrist. “ _Nice to meet you,_ ” he winces. 

“ _Come inside,_ ” she says, retreating into the doorway. “ _I can’t keep letting all the heat out._ ” 

See? Skwisgaar puts a hand on Toki’s back, guiding him up the steps behind her. You can be careful. You’re doing fine. 

They made it. The whole world isn’t dead. They made it to the last safe place. Toki’s back purrs under his fingertips as they step over the threshold. 

The house is furnished in a kind of company town version of the Scandinavian minimalist style, with an open concept living room slash kitchen built around a central fireplace. As Serveta explains to them, they get about eight hours of electricity a day, glacial meltwater piped in and heated over an open flame, and carefully rationed food, medicine, and soap. Without the possibility of obtaining supplies from the mainland, the residents of Longyearbyen must hunt and forage for their meals, and barter for the finite quantity of coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes left on the island. It’s sparse living, but for one of the last functioning human settlements on a post-apocalyptic Earth, it could be a lot worse. 

They set their belongings down on the table to go and idle in front of the fireplace. Skwisgaar finds himself trying to heal the temperature and moisture damage done to the Explorer in transit, only to be reminded, with a pang of disappointment, that it isn’t technically a living thing. Letting go of his guitar, he moves to stand beside Toki, who is staring, hands folded, into the flames, trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. 

“ _I can’t believe I’m actually meeting your mom,_ ” Toki whispers. The purr in his chest is sub-audible, but he seems unable to fully silence it. 

“ _You’ve met my mom._ ”

“ _I know._ ” He’s vibrating with excitement. “ _But not properly. I can’t believe she just invited me in like that,_ ” he whispers, in a way that says, ‘I can’t believe I’m being treated like a person.’ 

“ _This calls for celebration,_ ” Serveta is saying. She fills a copper kettle with freezing tap water and pulls a tin of hot cocoa mix off the shelf. It’s the Norwegian style, with cardamom. The scent floats through the air as she pries off the lid. “ _I’m sure you’ve had a difficult journey,_ ” she says, elbowing between them to put the kettle on the fire. “ _And I won’t interrogate you about it now— Hang on,_ ” she cries, “ _Why aren’t you wearing any shoes?_ ” 

“ _Umm…_ ” Skwisgaar looks down at his feet, sticking out from the hem of his too-short pant legs, and back up at her. “ _Couldn’t find any that fit,_ ” he mutters, feeling like a little kid. 

She puts a finger to her lips. “ _I don’t think any of Týr’s will fit you either…_ ” she muses.

“ _It’s okay._ ” He shrugs. “ _I don’t really need them._ ” The fire hisses, condensation on the outside of the kettle boiling away. “ _Where is Týr?_ ” he asks. 

Severta smooths her hands over the lap of her utility suit, abruptly changing keys. “ _He’s ill,_ ” she says. “ _So be gentle._ ”

She leads him into the bedroom, the blonde wood floor giving way to nylon carpet. The lights are off, and Týr is lying propped up on a stack of pillows, graying hair sprayed around his head. He looks terrible, to the point where Skwisgaar struggles to reconcile him with his memory. A green bruise covers almost a third of his face, his swollen eyelids twitching with fitful sleep.

“ _Honey._ ” Serveta hovers at his bedside, and he looks up at her in semi-conscious confusion. “ _Look who’s here!_ ” She touches his hand. 

“ _What—?_ ” Fearful gray eyes take in the looming shadow of room-filling wings. “ _Devil in Hell!_ ” He sits up, coughing into a rag. “ _Skwisgaar?!_ ” 

Serveta helps him swing his legs over the side of the bed. “ _Didn’t I tell you he’d come?_ ” she asks, clapping him on the back to help loosen the mucous. She turns to Skwisgaar and explains, “ _Týr_ _almost drowned._ ”

Without thinking, Skwisgaar kneels in front of him and gathers him into a hug. He can feel the effects of a concussion, cracked ribs, aspiration pneumonia. The injuries aren’t too fresh, as the bones are mostly fused. But Týr’s respiratory system is struggling to recover. His lungs have been filled with water. The bronchi are infected with bacteria that came from the ocean. 

A painful surge of affection brings the lightning to the surface of Skwisgaar’s palms. Back in Sweden, this kind and unassuming man had no idea he was earning his place in the heart of a god. But under its protection, he will be among the few mortals who will live to see the end of the end. 

The bronchial tubes open, white blood cells massing to attack the bacteria, lymph nodes shrinking as the source of inflammation is eliminated. Týr coughs, jerking forward, and Skwisgaar stands, letting go of him. The bruising on his face has cleared, rendering him a bit more recognizable. Breath whistles through his nose, and he brings a trembling hand to his chest. “ _Thank you,_ ” he says, shrinking from eye contact. His neat, straw-colored moustache is gone, his face dotted with gray stubble. The hand rises to screen his mouth. “ _Thank you,_ ” he repeats, failing to think of anything else to say.

“ _What happened to you?_ ” Skwisgaar asks. 

The sight of his mother embracing this man makes him ache. They are happy together. Even now, in this fallen world to which he abandoned them. Guilt still troubles him, but he’s determined to make it up to them, to ensure them many happy years together. 

Týr clears his throat. “ _Oscar and I were out fishing,_ ” he says. “ _Got caught in a storm._ ” 

“ _Nathan’s dad?_ ”

He nods. His look is grave. 

“ _Where is he?_ ” 

“ _Gone._ ” Týr says. “ _The boat went under, and I… He was just… Gone._ ” The rag scrunches in his hands. “ _This was six weeks ago,_ ” he says. “ _Been laid up ever since then, wishing there was something I could do for Rose._ ”

Serveta squeezes him, her arm around his shoulders. “ _She doesn’t blame you, Honey. No one blames you._ ” 

Týr crumples. “ _Even so._ ” 

The lights flicker on and off. Without saying another word, Skwisgaar turns around and walks across the living room, through the door, and right back out into the cold. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


The fog dissipates at the edge of the valley, away from the water, giving a clear view of the brilliant green stars. Light pollution from the settlement is minimal. If you ignore the temperature, it’s a beautiful spot to stay in.

He falls on his knees in a snow drift, hoping the wind will bury him. Maybe he can join a glacier, and just stay in this spot for a million years.

Warm hands materialize out of the darkness, trying to engulf him from behind, and he flinches. “ _Don’t._ ” 

The man died at sea. It’s the worst thing that could possibly have happened. Without a body, there’s nothing for him to bring back. 

The hands retreat, leaving him cold. “ _Are you sure?_ ”

His throat clenches. “ _I just wanna be alone._ ”

The green stars don’t give a fuck. They burn for billions of years, utterly indifferent to what’s happening around them. They don’t have minds trapped inside of them; Tortured for billions of years with regret. Must be nice. 

“ _Please. Let me help. It’s okay—_ ” 

He explodes. “ _It’s not okay!_ _Toki, it’s not okay! It’s never gonna be okay!_ ” Lightning arcs from him, instantly boiling a ring in the snow. His lungs squeeze, empty from shouting. He covers his face. “ _Nathan is never going to forgive me._ ” 

The wind tosses powder at them. Toki stands over him, helpless. “ _It’s not your fault,_ ” he insists.

“ _Yes it is._ ” Skwisgaar slumps, and Toki catches him, pulling Skwisgaar’s back against his chest.

The bass line throbs along his vertebrae, offering to melt his thoughts. It would be so easy to lose himself in Toki’s endless, worshipful attention. So easy to be validated and reassured by someone who orbits him like the moon, someone almost biologically incapable of ever rejecting him.

“ _You were adjusting to a whole new reality,_ ” Toki is saying. “ _You were confused and scared._ ” His beard strokes Skwisgaar’s neck. “ _It’s not your fault you couldn’t be here sooner. You didn’t know._ ” 

He feels a stab of resentment; Toki is partially to blame for this. Toki has enabled and encouraged the shirking of his responsibilities. Childish, selfish Toki. “ _I said I wanted to be alone._ ” He pries the hands away from his heart, throwing Toki off his back. 

“ _Everything’s all fucked._ ” Still, the shadow looms over him. “ _But it’s not your fault._ ”

“ _I swear to God, Toki, you do the same thing as my mom!_ ” He puts on a sulking voice: “ _‘Oh I’ve had a hard life! Things are hard! So I can’t be held responsible for anything.’ No. That’s bullshit. I refuse to do that._ ” He bares his teeth. “ _It’s_ not _okay. It_ is _my fault. I made a promise, to my best friend, and I fucking broke it._ ”

The shadows shuffle. “ _I’m sorry. I was just trying to help._ ”

“ _Well, you can’t,_ ” he snaps. “ _You can’t help. What you can do, is leave me alone for two fucking minutes when I ask you to._ ” 

The solid statue dissolves into the darkness, drifting away on the wind like smoke. 

Alone with his thoughts, Skwisgaar folds himself in half and presses his forehead to the frozen ground. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Eventually, he gets tired of wallowing and heads back to the house. The lights are on in the front room. Toki isn’t there.

Serveta ushers him in, pressing a cup of cocoa into his hands and thrusting him into a low back chair in front of the fireplace. He grunts at her questions, dazed and empty. He’s sort of glad Toki is off moping somewhere else, because he doesn’t want to face him. He feels mad at him, and guilty for yelling at him at the same time. He doesn’t know what to do.

Mechanically, as a way to avoid speaking, the cocoa is sipped. Týr’s snores are just audible from the other room. It’s really late, Skwisgaar realizes. The constant darkness makes it hard to tell. He also realizes Serveta has been speaking to him this whole time.

“ _I never had my act together,_ ” she’s in the middle of saying. The shallow, breathless quality in her voice means she’s holding back tears. “ _My life was a mess, when I brought you into it._ ”

Skwisgaar _hmns_ , to show that he’s listening. He’s sick with guilt. He doesn’t want to deal with her feelings right now. 

“ _If I’d had a man like Týr, back then… Well, there’s no use wondering,_ ” she continues. “ _The point is, I didn’t. I didn’t have any support._ ” She looks into her cup, the flames painting her face. “ _Let someone try and judge me, I always thought. They don’t know what I’ve been through. All those ‘nice’ women, with their ‘nice’ husbands. Let them run their mouths about me._ ” Her shoulders fall. “ _That’s what I always thought._ ” 

He studies her, his brain catching up with what she’s trying to tell him. “ _Mom…_ ” He lowers the cup from his mouth. 

She turns towards the window, her gaze fixed on some distant star. They sit in silence for a measure. 

“ _I wasn’t there for you._ ” She shrugs. “ _I wasn’t. And now that everything is the way it is…_ ” She gestures to the universe. “ _Well. You think about what’s really important, don’t you?_ ” 

“ _I’m sorry,_ ” he says. His wings pull tightly together, brooming the wooden floor behind him. “ _I wish I could say I had a good reason for taking so long to get here. But I just— I got lost, and confused._ ” 

She palms the back of his head, smoothing over the start of his braid. “ _Baby,_ ” she says. 

“ _I promised Nathan I’d keep his parents safe,_ ” he explains. “ _And I promised you I’d keep you and Týr safe. And I let all of you down. I’m so sorry._ ”

“ _Shhh, Baby,_ ” she says. Her hand moves down his back, stroking the bow of his wing. “ _Don’t be sorry for me. I’m just so happy you’re here._ ” He closes his eyes, allowing himself the feeling of her contrition. “ _There are so many things I wish had been different, now,_ ” she says. “ _But I’m just so happy you’re here._ ” 

He spends the night lying on a pallet in front of the fire, but it’s impossible to get any sleep. Rummaging through his knapsack for the watch, he winds and resets it, syncing it up with the clock on the wall in the kitchen. It’s 4:23 a.m. when he officially decides to go out and look for Toki.

Flying high above the valley, he doesn’t see any sign of him, but this is hardly a surprise. If Toki were that close, Skwisgaar would sense his unmistakable music. Gliding low through the mist, he does a few circles around Isfjorden Bay before landing, with a loud creak, on the end of the pier. The white dock beam cuts through the darkness, the only electrical light in use this early in the morning. Maybe he should be more upset that Toki is avoiding him, but all he really feels now is tired. 

As he gazes out at the dark green water, something vital pricks his senses, but at first he dismisses it as a hallucination. That emerald rumbling can’t be what it sounds like. Not now, not like this. After all, what are the chances? 

His lips part in mute wonder.

A great wave splashes up onto the dock, and out of the foam walks the glistening silver figure of Nathan, carrying a tattered bundle of sailcloth in his arms. He lays his burden on the dock and stands, wet hair curtaining his face. Wrapped in the sail, is the waterlogged corpse of his father. 

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Light stains the insides of his eyelids molten orange, and he groans at the intrusion. Someone has flipped the switch. He rolls over in bed, draping an anemic forearm across his eyes. Everything aches. 

“ _Sorry,_ ” Serveta whispers, flipping the light off again. The mattress bows with her weight, and he can hear her placing something on the nightstand. “ _How are you feeling?_ ” she asks.

When he first woke up here, incoherent and barely able to stand, she helped him to the shower, and combed out his tangled hair as he sat drying his feathers in front of the fire. 

A soft trill escapes his throat at the press of her hand on his forehead. Every movement aggravates the rawness in his chest. 

  
  
  


The corpse had been in an advanced state of decay, far gone beyond anything Skwisgaar had ever attempted to resuscitate. Sea creatures had eaten the eyes and lips. The abdominal cavity had completely collapsed. Weeks submerged in cold water had turned the fat and other soft tissues to soap; Soap, like in _Fight Club._ He didn’t even know that could happen.

Nathan was yelling at him in English as he knelt on the dock, raising his fingertips to the sky. In his hysteria, he’d assumed the words were curses, but as he later surmised, Nathan was begging him not to try it. He was thinking of Magnus, who after all had been in much better shape at the time of his resurrection. The thought of seeing his father condemned to some grotesque half-life was unbearable to him. 

Förlåt mig, he pleaded with Nathan. Låt mig. The sail unfurled, the cratered face gaping up at him in a silent scream. Lightning cooked the lump of wax, as Nathan fought to restrain his wrists.

If there was such a thing as truly gone, then this was truly gone. By then, Oscar Explosion had been little more than soap and bone. A _thing_ that had forgotten how to be a human body. It would have seemed impossible, not to say unconscionable, to force a soul back into this inert, repulsive matter. But Skwisgaar’s guilt had been more than a match for his reason. 

  
  
  


“ _You’re burning up,_ ” says Serveta. 

The slippery skin on the inside of his throat is screaming raw, leaving a metallic taste in his mouth. “ _That’s normal,_ ” he says, finding his voice. “ _The heat is good._ ” It gilds his bones, threading its way into all his soft tissues. The bleeding pinkness of his throat is just an outward hint of what his insides must be like right now.

He gazes up at her, blinking dreamily. The baby bird feelings she evokes in him are so disarming, that knowledge of her unreliability does nothing to quell them. Reflex closes his eyes as she pets his wing. The nightmares have been totally absent since he arrived here. 

“ _Nathan says you need a lot of calories,_ ” she explains. She has heated a can of sweetened condensed milk over the fire. 

Nathan says? His heart blooms. Nathan is worried about him? 

“ _Yeah._ ” He tries to sit up. A wave of vertigo reminds him he hasn’t eaten since Québec. 

“ _It’s pure sugar,_ ” she apologizes, “ _but it’s what I found in the cupboard. We don’t have much in the way of real food._ ”

To a human, the syrupy mixture would probably be undrinkable, but to him it’s delicious. Instant clarity hits his brain as the sugar coats the inside of his throat. “ _No, this is perfect,_ ” he says. “ _This stuff is actually really good for me._ ” The flexors of his wings relax as he sits up, draping them behind him like a cape. 

He takes another sip and tilts his wrist to study the label. It’s basically drinking a glass of hot liquid caramel. The taste makes him purr slightly. She seems pleased with this.

“ _I’ll keep that in mind,_ ” she says. 

She never knew how to take care of him when he was a human child. How is it that she seems to know exactly what he needs now?

  
  
  


No amount of voltage was going to restart a heart that had congealed into a rock of soap. The corpse simply lacked the systems and structures necessary to make any use of the lifeforce being channeled into it. Tissues had petrified. DNA had unraveled. The instructions for assembly had been lost.

The struggling and yelling stopped, and Nathan knelt beside the body, his hair a mourning veil. Skwisgaar stood, catching his breath. A caesura of quiet. Then:

The sound, an echo, struck his soul. It lifted his feet off the ground and filled his lungs with liquid nitrogen. A trace of intact DNA in the bone marrow. The sheet music for playing a song called Nathan’s dad. 

With a clap of thunder, he split the air, divining oxygen, from hydrogen, from carbon. In the village, lightswitches flipped on and doors were thrown open as people gathered in the field of packed snow between their houses and the edge of the water. Clutching their coats around them, they looked up to see him: Wings open, fingers raking heaven, ascending before them in a column of light. 

The green water bubbled up below him, the dirt under the snow yielding magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, iron. Without a salvageable corpse, he would do something drastic, something he didn’t even know he was capable of until he found himself doing it.

Spectators circled the corpse as its waxy crust began to crack, turning insides out. Recycling the materials— proteins, lipids, rare trace metals. First, the brittle skeleton emerged, growing shiny and white, and the rib cage expanded, filling with bright guts. Drawing moisture from the air, the flesh appeared layer by layer: First blue veins and tendons, long strips of red muscle, and clods of yellow fat. Jellylike eyeballs appeared in the skull as skin stretched to cover the face. The concentrated light cut through him, organs threatening to burst under the pressure, until at last, his creation stirred. 

  
  
  


The empty can clunks down on the particle board nightstand, and he sits back against the pillows, rubbing the pain in his chest. He’s never used his powers like that before. He feels beaten to a pulp. But the sugar takes the edge off. 

He watches her profile, limned with faint light from the other room. He could point out that it’s awfully convenient timing for her to have had this change of heart after he became a god. But so what if it’s a bit opportunistic? Being babied a little feels good.

“ _Remember that time I ate nothing but Nutella for like four days, because you were high on pills and forget to buy groceries?_ ” he asks her. 

The hand on his arm stiffens, but she doesn’t withdraw it. Her eyes are shining. 

It’s been so long since he examined a mortal up close, that he’d forgotten just how different his flesh is from theirs. Looking through his eyelashes, he can just see her hand on his forearm in the dark. Next to hers, the arm looks hard and smooth as marble, yet it still yields under her fingertips. Like Toki, he resembles a kind of eerie, living statue. Warm and appealing as mortal flesh, but made of such different clay. 

“ _I guess you probably_ don’t _remember,_ ” he says. “ _That was kinda the point._ ” He laughs, testing her discomfort. “ _Anyway, it’s ironic: Because now you really could feed me nothing but Nutella and it would actually be really healthy for me._ ”

Her lips form the word ‘baby.’ It feels like she might cry. Instead: “ _I washed your clothes,_ ” she says, producing the folded stack. She selects the gray tank top, hesitating when she realizes it won’t go over his wings.

The mattress creeks as he pivots, throwing off the covers and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. New muscles tremble with the effort, and she guides his ankles into the tube of fabric, letting him unroll it over his torso and slip the straps onto his shoulders.

“ _Am I easier to love, now that I’m so powerful?_ ” he asks the top of her head, as she’s helping him into his sweatpants.

“ _Don’t be like that,_ ” she says to his navel. 

The ski fleece goes over his arms and neck like a smock, and she reaches behind him to zip it closed under his wings. The fabric smells like baking soda, and feels nice and soft against his new skin. He’s not sure what kind of response he’s looking for from her; It’s more like he’s thinking out loud. 

“ _Counterpoint:_ ” he continues. “ _I was already one of the richest and most famous people on Earth, and I remember when you tried to butter me up so you could ask me for money. And this isn’t like that._ ” He scans her face, ghostly without makeup. “ _This is different._ ”

She brushes imaginary dust from his shoulders. “ _Blue is such a beautiful color on you,_ ” she says. “ _I’ve always thought so._ ” 

He can hear the timbre of her thoughts. She’s in awe of him, this son of hers. This magnificent being she helped create. It’s ego-boosting and humbling at the same time, to think that she was chosen by the universe for this role of holy mother. She wishes he wouldn’t bring up her failures, because it kind of undermines the whole Virgin Mary thing she’s trying to do, but she knows better than to say it.

They study each other in silence. He tilts his head to one side. The corners of her mouth pull. 

  
  
  


The hardest part was putting the soul back in. He bowed over the twitching body, lifting the head to touch faces with it. Already, he felt himself becoming unglued, his overextended muscles beginning to fail him. But this part required subtlety and concentration. To build the body was an act of will, but to recover the soul was an act of dark love; A kind of seduction.

Pulling the scattered particles from the void was like squeezing blood from a stone. In fact, as he’d just discovered, squeezing literal blood from a literal stone had been easier. But as he cradled the head in his lap and felt the cloud of consciousness beginning to cohere, he knew in these crucial seconds that he would have to give it everything he had. To put as much of the man back in as he could. To give Nathan his dad back, and not some cruel facsimile.

He could feel the neurons firing between his palms, the eyeballs rolling with REM sleep, the soul waking up in its new home. He tried to be gentle, to ease the passage back into this world, but he didn’t get much of a chance. His stomach ruptured, filling his abdominal cavity with acid. Arteries burst, thousands of little tears shearing his flesh from within, until his body simply resigned from the task. Concentration broken, the fissure he’d torn in heaven collapsed with a second crack of thunder. 

Oscar Explosion stood, reaching in mute confusion for his silver-scaled son. Someone in the crowd produced a blanket to wrap him in. Someone screamed, and Nathan’s mom appeared, embracing her husband, and the throng swallowed them, applauding and weeping and falling to their knees in the snow.

  
  
  


“ _I’m sorry,_ ” she says, applying the heels of her hands to her eyes. Tears the size of grapes no doubt to follow. “ _Of course, I’ve always loved you. You’re a miracle, and I’ve always known that. It’s not just— what you’ve become. I’ve loved you since before you were even born._ ” 

“ _Yeah._ ” He shrugs. “ _I even think you really are kind of sorry._ ” Bracing his hands on the mattress, he tries to ease forward onto his feet, but putting weight on them is still too painful. Sore as he is, he doesn’t want to monopolize the only bed in the house any longer. He’d rather convalesce in front of the fireplace, with a guitar. “ _You’ve been hamming it up a lot, sure,_ ” he says. “ _But it’s not_ all _fake. There’s definitely something to it._ ”

The right hand flies to her chest. “ _How can you say that?_ ” Scandalized is one of her favorite modes. “ _Why would I fake such a thing?_ ”

“ _You like attention,_ ” he offers. “ _You like drama. If you’re gonna be sorry, after all this time, you probably want it to be a whole ‘thing.’ Plus: You’re a little bit scared of me._ ”

“ _Scared of you?_ ” She grips his face, thumbs stroking his freshly shaven jaw. “ _How could I be scared of you?_ ” she exclaims. “ _You’re my angel! It’s a relief to finally have you here._ ” She kisses his forehead, to show how not-scared she is.

Warmth flutters inside him; These baby bird feelings. Why does it work on him even when he knows she’s theatricizing? Maybe it’s because he secretly likes that about her; Not the dishonesty part, but just what a charmingly absurd diva she can be. They are both consummate performers. 

“ _It’s okay._ ” He smiles. “ _You don’t have to be all anxious and try-hard._ ” The side of his face strokes her hand. “ _You’re under my protection now. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you before like I promised, but I am now._ ” He hugs her, closing his eyes. 

Even in this weakened state, his power is so palpable and overwhelming that it freezes her in place. He can hear her thready heartbeat, the dizzy mixture in her veins. She both loves and fears him as one does a god. But she also recognizes her son in him. Her arms close around his mesmerizing and terrifying body, accepting and knowing him as other mortals never will. 

From his earliest memories, it was just the two of them; Other people came and went. He remembers her kissing his scrapes when he fell at the skating rink, and making her birthday cards out of construction paper, and watching the Eurovision Song Contest on television the year Sweden won for _Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley_. He remembers the bad stuff, too. But in the end, she’s come through for him, he figures. So he’s choosing to focus on the good.

“ _It doesn’t have to be a whole ‘thing,’_ ” he says softly, “ _but I believe that you’re sorry, or at least, that you want things to be different between us. And that’s what I want, too._ ”

“ _Skwisgaar—_ ” Without the shield of melodrama, she’s not very good at being sincere with words. But he gets the gist of it.

Stretching his aching wings, he smiles into her shoulder, letting her flawed love win him over. It’s just such a relief to be here.

  
  
  


There were voices above him, clamoring in English, Norwegian, and Russian. The miners had gathered along the shore to afflict him with their prayers, a hundred men in wool caps and parkas, their reverent fingers splayed towards the light. 

Blurry shapes surrounded him. He could smell the coal dust on their breath as they pressed near. He tried to tell them he didn’t want to be touched, but he couldn’t speak. When he looked down, he saw he had vomited liters of blood. Helplessness choked him, and for a moment, this was his nightmare, and these men were the horde of the dead closing in. 

The crowd parted for her, and Serveta rushed to stand between him and the men, a long coat swishing around her ankles. She slapped the nearest one across the face, yelling at them to stay back, and to a man, they obeyed. The promised day had come, she declared. She paced the edge of the dock, and combining the poise of a runway model with the zeal of a Joan of Arc, she commanded them: Bow before your god. 

The miners dropped to their knees in the snow, and she knelt to gather him into her arms. Resting his head in her lap, he felt the panic ebb from his battered body. My son has returned to me, she told them. Follow him, and there’s a chance you’ll be saved; Offend him, and you provoke the wrath of Death himself.

Consciousness slipped, and the next thing he remembered he was lying in the dark bedroom, her hand still softly petting his hair. He cried from the pain, lapsing in and out of dreamless sleep. It felt like he’d gone through a meat grinder, like he was a pile of raw hamburger in the general shape of a person.

The miracle he’d performed was good, she told him. The people had been waiting for his return, and now they would be overjoyed. She stroked and whispered to him, and helped him shower, and combed his hair, and tilted a glass of water against his lips. You are the light of this world, she told him. You give everyone hope. Even me, Little Dove. And I’ve never had that. Her blunted nails combed his feathers with tranquilizing repetition. And as he lay there, sore limbs heavy with healing light, he found himself almost beginning to believe her.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“ _Mom… Are you a cult leader?_ ” he asks, at length. He has gingerly seated himself in front of the fireplace, Toki’s Le Grande propped on his knee. “ _Is this a cult?_ ”

Serveta rounds the kitchen counter, waving him off. “ _We all have our survival skills,_ ” she says. She pulls up one of the low-back Scandanavian minimalist chairs that seem to have come with these prefab company houses. “ _Rose knows how to hunt, and fish, and start a fire._ ” She shrugs, taking a sip of water. “ _I know how to work a crowd._ ”

“ _Euughhh..._ ” Skwisgaar squints. 

Her spine straightens, a distant gleam in her eye. Auditioning for some combination of high priestess and stage manager. “ _What can I say? I have zazz._ ”

Familiar strings shiver beneath his fingers, putting him in an obliging mood. A hollow-body model, the Gibson Le Grande can be played acoustically when it’s unplugged; Not something he’d ever looked for in a guitar, but it does seem like an advantage in an apocalypse scenario. He strums an E harmonic minor scale, enjoying the soft, sighing melodies that spring so effortlessly to his fingertips.

“ _What exactly have you been telling these people?_ ” he asks her. 

There are little black specks at the bottom of her glass, he notices. Iron traces from inside their plumbing? Coal dust? Does everyone in this mining settlement have black lung? If so, is he going to be expected to fix them? 

She rests her glass on the little breakfast table against the wall and scoots her chair closer to the fire. “ _I told them I gave birth to a god, who had promised to return one day and save humanity,_ ” she says, with mock grandeur. “ _You know, the truth._ ”

He arches an eyebrow. “ _I’m not sure that was totally necessary._ ”

“ _Oh, trust me._ ” She frowns. “ _It was. This place was a madhouse, in the beginning. It was like that- That Kurt Russell movie, you know, with the dog?_ ”

“ _You mean ‘The Thing’?_ ”

“ _Exactly._ ” She props her heels on the hearthstone. “ _These men would have eaten each other alive a long time ago, if I hadn’t given them something to believe in._ ” 

There’s a bit of blue wool fiber from her sweater caught in her hair. Unbraided, it reaches just past her shoulders, where it begins to wave, just like his. It’s still thick and well-maintained, despite having gone totally white. He can’t get over how striking she looks without makeup, how plausibly saintlike. For an old lady, she is exceptionally tall and strong, with piercing mineral blue eyes, like an ancient Viking shieldmaiden. 

The idea of his mother reinventing herself as some sort of holy woman is absurd on its face, and a previous version of him would have found it pretty galling. But instead, he’s sort of enjoying this little dance of theirs. He kinda wants to let her get away with hitting the reset button, just so he can forget about the bad stuff, and bask in her love and attention. Maybe that’s dupeish of him. Maybe a less damaged son wouldn’t put up with it. 

“ _Well, I just hope you haven’t over-promised,_ ” he says. “ _I’d hate to disappoint my fans._ ” 

“ _How could they be disappointed?_ ” She shakes her head. “ _Look at you: You look like you stepped out of a- A stained glass window, or something._ ” 

“ _Alright,_ ” he begins, “ _I get that we’re doing a thing—_ ”

The right hand covers her heart again. “ _It’s not ‘a thing!’_ ” That look of earnest intensity, so utterly out of character on her, returns. “ _My baby is a god, and deserves to be worshiped as a god._ ”

Skwisgaar snorts. “ _It is one-hundred percent ‘a thing.’_ ” He props his bare feet on the hearthstone beside hers. “ _But if it’s a choice between your thing, and John Carpenter’s Thing…_ ” He plays a little cascading suspense lick. No matter how many eons he lives, there’s always going to be a compartment of his brain devoted to synth scores from all the eighties horror movies they watched when he was a kid.

Having her concoct a religion around him should be unbearably weird, but in a way, it’s an ideal buffer between them. It’s easier for him to accept this sudden closeness— the scary, vulnerable feelings that rose in him last night while she was taking care of him —through the filter of Madonna and Child roleplay.

“ _Very funny._ ” She rolls her eyes at him and smiles.

He aches with the knowledge that this familiarity can’t last; Some day, all the mortals who knew him as he was before will be gone, and he’ll have to let go of this forever. Is he a dupe for wanting to make the most of his last connection to the human world, to make nice with the person who’s known him the longest, while he still can? Maybe. 

While he’s considering this, there’s a knock at the door. 

“ _I told them you were not to be disturbed,_ ” she huffs, leaping to answer it. “Oh. Is you.” She switches into English. 

Nathan stands against the perma-night, hair shadowing his face. His silvery chest is bare beneath a flannel bathrobe, as the cold hardly seems to affect him. Someone has persuaded him to put on pants. “Um. Hi,” he says, his voice way too loud. He stands awkwardly in the doorway, craning past her to talk to Skwisgaar. “I tried to come by yesterday,” he says, modulating his volume. “But you were all delirious and shit.” He looks to Serveta and back again. “Looks like. You’re awake now. So.”

Skwisgaar is frozen. Nathan is back. Nathan is here. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just nods in affirmation. 

“Cool.” Nathan hesitates. “Can-I-come-inside-now? Or.”

“Vatevars you does,” says Serveta, “don’t stands dere lettinks my heat outs.”

“Oh yeah.” He crosses the threshold, closing the door behind him. “Sorry.” He takes a step towards the fireplace, and Skwisgaar’s wings retract, heels sliding off the hearthstone, as if to make him appear small. 

Serveta glances between them. “I go makes deh chokolach,” she says, withdrawing to the little kitchen. 

Taking the cue, Nathan lowers himself into her chair, his exposed torso glittering in the firelight. Silver scales peek above his waistband, covering the softer flesh under his arms and around his throat. He’s all muscle now, but still big and brawny; He doesn’t taper elegantly at the waist like Toki. Gills twitch under this scrutiny. 

“Hey,” he says. “Are you, like…?” 

Skwisgaar nods.

“Okay and stuff?”

Skwisgaar nods again.

Eye contact is a lot. They both stare ahead into the fire. 

“Cool.” Nathan clears his throat. “So, uh. It’s been a while, huh? Pal? Is ‘pal’ still a thing we say?”

Skwisgaar frets in concentration, trying to parse Nathan’s words. There are so many things he wishes he could say in response. He lowers his chin, feeling shy. “Anglish… amn’ts so good nows,” he mutters. 

“That’s okay,” says Nathan, after a beat. “Your English has never been good. For like, the first two years I knew you, I couldn’t understand a single fucking word you were saying.”

“Pffft—” Skwisgaar sits up. “Well, fucks you den.”

“Oh, you remember that though,” Nathan laughs. “You remember how to say ‘fucks you.’” He hunches forward, hands clasped between his knees. “I missed you, man,” he adds. 

Skwisgaar stills the strings. “Jag är… missinks you,” he says softly. Nathan’s feet are tipped with short, reptilian claws that click against the blonde wood floor. The shiny black fingernails aren’t painted either, he realizes. “Sorries—” he blurts. 

“For what?”

“Mitt löfte— mine promiske, to yous. Brokes it.” 

“Dude,” says Nathan. “No. Come on. What the fuck?” Jellylike inner lids twitch over his amphibious green eyes. “I wasn’t gonna ask you to do it,” he says. “Not that I don’t ‘believe in you,’ or whatever. But.” He wipes at his mouth, faltering. “I was afraid it wouldn’t be him.” 

Skwisgaar holds his breath. 

“He doesn’t remember the Doomstar, or the apocalypse, or how he got here. So he’s, ya know. Pretty out of it. But…”

“Ja?” he whispers. 

“But it’s him.” Nathan frowns. “He recognizes my mom and me. He remembers the important stuff.” Skwisgaar is familiar enough with his typical range of expressions to know that this is a frown of joy. “You didn’t have to do that shit,” says Nathan. “It was probably super dangerous, and definitely fucken crazy. But thank you. Fucken. Thank you, man.” 

Skiwsgaar smiles. A flush of light breaks over him, a lick of triumph leaping from his fingers, like ‘ta-da.’ Nathan isn’t mad at him; Is happy to see him, even. For the price of a little blood, it seems he really can fix anything. Even his mother seems to believe in him; And the woman doesn’t believe in anything. The guilt that drove him to such extremes is giving way to ego, and he doesn’t mind it one bit. 

Nathan watches his fingers, enthralled. “Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he repeats, going distant. “You know where I’ve been all this time?”

Skwisgaar shakes his head, still playing. 

The flimsy chair pivots, so that it’s perpendicular to the fireplace. Nathan leans forward, hair pouring over his thighs. “I traveled to the deepest, blackest depths,” he rumbles. “To receive the true message, of our final album. That’s right:” He pauses for effect. “We’re getting the band back together.” 

Forgetting how sore he is, Skwisgaar swings to face him, the plastic feet of his chair scraping the floor in a ninety degree arc. “Fucks ja,” he breathes. Nickel strings hum with current, the tendons pulling in his arm as he loops a couple of tapping riffs. The album; Of course! They have to finish the album! He didn’t even realize this was just what he’d been waiting to hear. 

“I know exactly what I want the whole vibe of it to be,” Nathan is saying. He sinks his fingers into some invisible substance. “It’s gonna be in C minor, with like, this massive, crushing symphonic texture to it— I can’t explain it that well. But you’re gonna see exactly what I’m trying to do once we get into it.”

Skwisgaar floats closer, watching Nathan watch him play. His feathers fluff, lungs filling with a gratifying fizz of confidence. “Usuallies ams seeings what you’s tryinks to do, före you does,” he quips. Even his English isn’t that bad, with a little back and forth to jog his memory.

“Well, that was before I could tell the future.” Nathan crosses his arms and tries to lean back, reminded with a jolt that the chair doesn’t have a real back. “Hey, play that again.” He points, recovering. “Is that from one of our old demos?”

“Ja.” Skwisgaar loops it again, adding a fun little slide at the end. Talking shop is so easy, so normal, that for a moment it’s almost like they’re back at Mordhaus, in the studio. He has to fight to restrain his wings from knocking something over in excitement. 

“You know, when I think about all the stuff we lost. All the furniture, and clothes, and cars, and gear, and priceless artifacts, and like, solid gold bidets and shit… The only thing I really regret losing are those fucken demos.” 

“Hasn’t lost not’ing.” He taps his temple. “All dere.” 

Nathan’s mouth falls open. “You’re shitting me,” he says. “When did you have the time to memorize the demos?” 

“Pffft.” Skwisgaar tosses his hair. “Names it, I plays it.” It falls in bouncy, asymmetric waves from air drying after the shower. The slip of it against his shoulders makes him feel… cool, and charismatic, and sexy, and a hundred other things he hasn’t felt in ages. 

“Why am I surprised?” Nathan marvels. “Like, why- Why would I be surprised? By that? It’s-the-least-surprising-thing-I’ve-ever-heard. You lunatic.” 

Nudging between them, Serveta sets a plastic tray on the hearthstone. “Chokolach?” she offers. They both mumble thanks, accepting a cup as she stands back, one hand on her hip. Her gaze flits between them, crinkling with amusement as she helps Skwisgaar set the Le Grande aside so he can drink. “ _Should I tell his mother not to send him over here half naked?_ ” she asks, shrugging in Nathan’s direction. 

“ _What?_ ” Skwisgaar startles.

“ _You’ve been openly staring at him since he walked in the door,_ ” she smirks. “ _A bit rude, if you ask me._ ” She turns her chin in mock modesty. “ _You won’t see me looking._ ”

“ _I better not!_ ” he almost spits. 

Nathan sips his cocoa, blissfully unaware of what they’re saying about him. “Hey, what’s with the semi-acoustic?” he asks.

“Is Toki’s,” Skwisgaar says, distracted. 

“Yeah, that reminds me…” Nathan hunts around the room. “Where _is_ Toki?”

Realizing they’re both looking at him, Skwisgaar mutters behind the rim of his cup. “Conspishiously absents.”

“Are you trying to say ‘conspicuously’? Or ‘suspiciously’?”

“Euuuggghhhhhhhhhh… Boffs?”

“Alright, well.” The inner eyelids blink again. A nervous reflex? “That’s not. Good.” 

Skwisgaar stiffens, feeling the sudden need to justify his own lack of concern. Since he woke up, he’s been operating under the unexamined assumption that Toki will simply return to him. After all, how could Toki do otherwise? A part of him wants to ask about the future, but the rest of him doesn’t dare. There is only one outcome he’s willing to entertain: “Ams okej. He comes backs to me.” He smiles.

“Yeah?” Nathan lowers his voice. “You two, uh… I mean. How’s that workin’ out?” 

I need him, Skwisgaar thinks. I trust him completely, because I have to. Because imagining our future together is the only thing that keeps me sane. He and I will roam this earth together for eons; Or we’ll lose our minds doing it alone. 

But he can’t figure out how to articulate any of those things in English, so instead he takes a sip of his cocoa and says: “Is goods.”

“I shouldn’t’ve put this all on you,” Nathan sighs. “I mean. It’s really fucked up for you to have to like. Babysit him forever. Maybe there’s another way…” 

Skwisgaar protests. “Nej. Is goods. Togedders forevers.” Longing simmers in his belly. Forever can’t start soon enough. 

The fire glances off the hollow of Nathan’s throat, lighting one scale like a shard of mirror and draping his face in shadow. “Okay.” He nods. “I mean. If everything’s cool. That’s great.” He glances up at Serveta, as though seeking corroboration, but she just shrugs at him with her eyebrows. “Anyway,” he says, “I told my mom I’d be heading back, so.” He rises from the chair, the sash of the bathrobe swinging from his hip. 

“Vhat a nice boy,” she says, collecting his empty cup. “You asks your mazzur, ams zhere anyt’ing I can does for her, okeh?” 

He nods. 

Before he can take a step, Skwisgaar surges to his feet to hug him. The muscles in his legs scream, posture flagging, the blood rushing to his head. Nathan’s breath is cool, and his hair smells like saltwater. They’re going to finish the album. The gears of fate are in motion again. 

When the door closes behind him, Skwisgaar stands there staring at it, heart pounding in his ears. The lights flicker, static pouring down his spine. All life on Earth sings beneath his fingertips. Pffft— Save humanity? That’s doable. 

“ _Sweetie, your nose is bleeding,_ ” says Serveta, easing him back into the chair. A hot, damp cloth dabs his face, as he continues to stare straight ahead. Pain tempers him, but only temporarily. He can already feel the light expanding within him, like a newborn star. The power hasn’t felt this intoxicating since he first discovered it. 

If he can rebuild a human being from raw elements, he can do anything. It’s only a step or two removed from abiogenesis. From sculpting Adam out of clay. This body, that still feels so strange and heavy on him, is the fulcrum of Creation.

“ _You’re right, Mom,_ ” he says. 

“ _Sure I am._ ” She squints, squeezing his shoulder. “ _About what?_ ”

He closes his eyes, absorbing the warmth of her hand through the fleece. “ _About zazz._ ”

After more than a year in the wilderness, he finally feels like himself again. He feels like ‘Skwisgaar Skwigelf’ in stage lights. He feels like a fucking god.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Týr comes home in the evening with a pile of kindling, and spends a good hour aimlessly prodding the fire, while Serveta takes the kitchen faucet apart, trying to clean out the filter. Life on Svalbard is boring, Skwisgaar gathers, when it isn’t desperate. The sunless days are devoted to hunting, fishing, logging, coal mining, and routine maintenance of the island’s precarious infrastructure. Without the support of the Norwegian government, they are one bad storm or power outage from total disaster. They have first aid supplies, but no antibiotics or insulin. As Serveta explains, in her blithe and gossipy way, they’ve had people die of the flu, pneumonia, jaw infections, botulism, gangrene, exposure, and once, a polar bear attack. 

This puts the loss of Nathan’s father in context, Skwisgaar supposes. This is what their lives have been like. Well, he’s resolved, not anymore. 

They eat their ration of kippered herring around the table, talking about nothing. The weather, maybe. Skwisgaar’s hardly listening. 

Still pitch dark out there, Honey? Still cold enough to take your fingers off if you fuck around? 

Sure is, Dear. 

He loves just watching them. Their stilted attempts to act normal around him make him ache with affection. There’s an element of déjà vu involved, from living with them in Sweden— the rhythms of their conversation, the way they inhabit the shared space of the table. It had seemed too good to be true then— maybe because he was so guarded, or maybe because his mother was already planning to sabotage her own happiness, so that nothing else could do it for her. 

Now, they reenact the family dinner scene, within a theater of the absurd. Chairs slide in and out from the table, careful not to tread on his enormous wings. They ask him how he’s feeling, like he’s a little kid home sick from school. He loves this game; It’s wonderful. 

The power simmers beneath his skin. They ask him if he needs another blanket for the night. If he’s going to be comfortable. He doesn’t want to let them go. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Squinting through his eyelashes, he sees a shadow fluttering in the corner of the ceiling. It’s late, and he’s lying on a foam mat in front of the fireplace, stretching his legs under a stack of fleece blankets. If he holds his breath, he can hear Týr snoring in the other room. Aside from the crackling of the fire, it’s quiet. 

The shadow shimmers above him, as if it thinks he doesn’t notice it. Giving up the game of pretending to be asleep, he yanks Toki back into solidity and under the covers, earning him a crow-like shriek.

“ _That’s a new sound,_ ” he laughs, rolling his quarry into a hug. A bubble of joy presses the inside of his chest. Toki is back, as predicted. He knew there was nothing to worry about. 

“ _Did you actually walk through the wall?_ ” he asks, impressed. “ _You’re getting so good at that._ ” It’s exciting to find that Toki’s powers are growing, too. They have so much to catch up on, in only a few short days. “ _I can’t wait to tell you everything,_ ” he whispers. 

But Toki is stiff and strange in his arms. He doesn’t laugh along. Fear is grinding his jaw.

“ _What’s wrong?_ ” Skwisgaar realizes he’s trembling. Their rhythms are out of sync. 

Toki flinches. He doesn’t speak. There’s a wild, starving look in his eyes. 

“ _Hey._ ” Skwisgaar bumps his forehead. Their chests touch, sharing a sonic pulse, and he reaches to stroke the underside of Toki’s wings. 

“ _Can I come back now?_ ” Toki’s voice breaks, like a kid’s. “ _Please?_ ” The rush of comfort chemicals seems to shock his nervous system into action. He hugs back, rolling them tightly together. “ _I tried to give you space,_ ” he says. “ _But I- I couldn’t sleep without you._ ” The air around him throbs, bending like a mirage. He’s delirious, Skwisgaar realizes. Dangerously out of focus and control. “ _Please, I’m so tired,_ ” he whimpers. Nearby objects float— the fire iron, the ash can, the particle wood chairs. Toki squirms. His hair undulates like he’s underwater. “ _I tried,_ ” he repeats. “ _Please let me come back. I’ll do anything—_ ” Everything falls to the floor with a crash. 

Skwisgaar holds him close, laying Toki’s head on his chest. “ _Shhh,_ ” he says. “ _Rest now._ ” A sleep-deprived Toki is a code red emergency, around his human parents. But the snoring from the other room continues, undisturbed. As long as Toki is in his arms, Skwisgaar can absorb his rogue energy, neutralizing the threat. 

The logs shuffle, caught in the net of dark gravity. Toki’s wings fan open, knocking things over, as Skwisgaar tries to wrestle them still. If Týr or his mother wake up and try to come in here, it will be harder to protect them. Better for Toki’s attention to be focused exclusively on someone who can withstand it.

“ _I’m sorry I yelled at you,_ ” Skwisgaar murmurs, doing his best to project calm. “ _I just wanted to be alone for a minute. I didn’t mean for you to go away._ ” He massages Toki’s back, pressing a lullaby into his tense muscles. 

Toki settles, wings folding over top of the blankets, chest vibrating in relief. “ _You still… want me?_ ” 

“ _I promised you f_ _orever, you dildo. How many times do I have to say it?_ ”

“ _Forever…_ ” he mouths. “ _You have to say it… forever._ ” His shoulder blades unclench, letting him melt into the embrace. The scent of burning clings to his rumpled clothes. His breath smells like iron. 

“ _Where have you been?_ ” Skwisgaar asks.

A tremor in the air, stone limbs shifting against him. “ _I don’t wanna talk about it now._ ” A pleasantly mindless fill passage rises to cover these thoughts. Just hold me now. Just let me rest. 

“ _Have you eaten anything?_ ” 

Toki nods against him. “ _I killed a reindeer. Ate it raw._ ” 

“ _That’s good._ ” 

Calories can only help. With a little time to recharge, he should be healthy, calm, in control. Safe to interact with humans again. 

“ _I brought two more…_ ” He cranes his head towards the door. “ _They’re outside._ ”

“ _Reindeer?_ ”

“ _Mm-hmm. As a present,_ ” he says. “ _In case your mom was… hungry._ ” He yawns. “ _I just want her to like me._ ”

“ _Well, you’ve got the right approach._ ” Skwisgaar smiles into his hair. “ _She definitely likes people who bring her presents. Wouldn’t hurt to tell her she’s a good cook either, even if it’s not true._ ”

They lie still for several minutes, until it seems Toki has fallen asleep. Or not quite sleep, but whatever it is he falls into. Skwisgaar’s never really stayed awake long enough to observe it. He studies the line of Toki’s back, watching it rise and fall in the dark. Faint blue light tickles across Toki’s skin, like ribbons of sunshine on the surface of the ocean. It looks peaceful, he thinks, with a pang of guilt. It’s awful to imagine Toki tossing and turning, unable to achieve this restorative state without his help. What Nathan said earlier, about having to babysit, irks him. Even if it weren’t for the good of the world— How could he possibly deny Toki this basic comfort?

“ _It’s stupid,_ ” Toki mumbles, sensing these thoughts. The blue lights fade, his conscious mind bobbing to the surface again. “ _I’m just so used to falling asleep to your heartbeat. I should be able to put myself in a trance, without your help. But I was too upset. I have to be really calm for it to work._ ” Already, there’s more clarity in his voice. 

“ _It’s okay,_ ” Skwisgaar assures him. 

“ _I hate that I’m like this,_ ” Toki says. “ _I shouldn’t need you to rock me, like a baby. It’s pathetic._ ” 

Sensing where this is going, Skwisgaar doesn’t contradict him. It’s difficult to communicate with Toki when he gets into self pity mode. All their arguments tend to devolve into the same useless pattern: No, it’s not. Yes, it is. No, it’s not. 

“ _This feels so nice, though,_ ” Toki allows, stretching against him like a cat. “ _Whatever you did to me, when we were in Greenland— It’s like you plugged my brain back in, or something. I feel… so much more now._ ”

Skwisgaar kisses his head, humming in thought. _“Maybe it’s like when you practice a passage for a long time, and you can’t seem to get it… and then all of a sudden it just clicks. Maybe your brain is learning through reinforcement._ ” He slips a hand under the hem of Toki’s fleece, tracing the crevice of his spine. “ _Or,_ ” he teases, “ _maybe I’m just that good._ ”

The blankets shift, as Toki hooks his thigh around Skwisgaar’s hip, his warm, relaxed weight pinning Skwisgaar in place. The argumentative impulse returns: “ _Why didn’t you come looking for me?_ ” he asks.

“ _I trust you completely; I knew you’d come back._ ”

“ _But I wanted to come back sooner. You could have come and gotten me._ ”

“ _Toki, I spent most of the past two days unconscious._ ”

“ _What? Why?_ ” He twists to look at Skwisgaar’s face, his stomach muscles tensing with concern. 

Where to start? So much has happened, in such a short span of time. Skwisgaar rolls onto his side, letting Toki’s head drop onto the pillow beside him so that they’re facing each other. “ _You need sleep,_ ” he says, cupping Toki’s upper arm. “ _Maybe I should tell you everything in the morning._ ” He pours a soothing diminuendo along Toki’s nerves, kissing the tip of his nose. 

“ _I can’t sleep… if I’m worried about you,_ ” Toki slurs, though his flagging eyelids tend to contradict him. It’s curious; Particles suspended in time, his body never tires, or ages, or wears down. Yet something in him, his mind or soul, craves rest. 

If they’re both immortal and indestructible, then why does going through the motions of mortal life seem to make such a big difference? They don’t need food or sleep at all; Except that they _do_ need them. To feel normal, to feel healthy, to stay in control. Skwisgaar wonders at the mechanisms behind it. He wishes Toki were more keen to explore these questions with him.

“ _Nathan is back,_ ” he says. Because who was he kidding? Of course he can’t sleep on such news. 

“ _I know,_ ” Toki yawns. “ _I talked to him earlier._ ” He shifts closer, his breath on Skwisgaar’s neck. “ _He was out there catching fish, for people to eat. That’s why I went back, for the reindeer. I wanted to be helpful, too._ ” Black feathers shiver, enjoying the heat. Their fever-warm bodies can never seem to get enough of heat. 

“ _Did he tell you he’s been working on the album?_ ” Skwisgaar brightens. “ _Toki, we’re gonna finish the album; And when we do, we’re gonna save the world._ ” Excitement wriggles him. He props himself on one elbow, momentarily forgetting the aim of sleep. “ _And it’s like— Of course we are! We’re fucking Dethklok!_ ” He laughs. “ _How did I let myself forget that?_ ” 

Toki shrinks, frowning weakly below him. His voice is compressed. “ _When I left, you were miserable,_ ” he says. “ _Then I’m gone for two days, and all of a sudden you’re happy._ ” 

“ _That’s not—_ ” Skwisgaar sighs. “ _Toki, I’m happy, because Nathan's back. I'm even happier now that you're back._ ”

“ _You didn’t even come looking for me, though._ ”

“ _I was trying to tell you before. I brought his father back from the dead, and it- It knocked me out. It was— way beyond anything I’ve ever done,_ ” he struggles. How to explain it? The sheer sense of power he’d felt, when Nathan told him it had actually worked? He’d felt like a rockstar again. Like raising his fist under the hot lights, sweaty and breathless, a ribbon of blood traveling down his arm, engulfed by the swell of the crowd. Like there was nothing, nothing he couldn’t accomplish, for the price of a little blood. 

“ _You love him,_ ” says Toki. It’s not an accusation. His voice is soft with despair. 

Skwisgaar sinks back down to earth, laying his head on the pillow. For a moment, he’s caught off guard. They stare into each other, blue pupils huge in the dark. “ _Yes,_ ” he says, after a moment of thought. 

There can be no secrets, because that’s what this takes. That’s what being together forever takes.

Toki’s face crumples. All six of his powerfully sculpted limbs lie floppy and absurd. Oh, he mouths. Vacant with defeat.

The smell of burning fills Skwisgaar’s lungs as he hugs Toki close. “ _I’ve never hidden these feelings from you,_ ” he says. “ _I share everything with you, because it’s the only way we can do this._ ” 

Still woozy with exhaustion, Toki curls against him and begins to cry. Skwisgaar decodes the words ‘you love him’ being mouthed against his neck. Fistfulls of his fleece are seized— the injured fret hand trembling with weakness, in a pitifully asymmetrical drowning grip. 

Skwisgaar rocks him, whispering to the back of his ear. “ _If you feel what I’m feeling,_ ” he says, “ _then you know how much I love you._ ”

Arms and legs wrap around him, holding him in a dark, humming vice. The fire tongs clatter on their hook, threatening to float away. “ _I need you,_ ” Toki sobs. “ _I just need to be near you._ ”

“ _Toki, I’m right here,_ ” Skwisgaar whispers. “ _I’m not going anywhere._ ”

They fall still, too tired to argue. No, you’re not. Yes, I am. No, you’re not. 

“ _You know what I think about, to feel better?_ ” Skwisgaar asks rhetorically. Shimmering chords rise from his diaphragm as he releases a meditative breath. “ _I think about us, a million years from now,_ ” he says. “ _Imagine waking up in the arms of someone who’s loved you for a million years. That’s what I’m looking forward to._ ” 

Nudging Toki’s mind open, he composes a sound image of lusciously resonant bass notes. Low and steady at first, the composition builds, gaining energy and complexity as the melody unfurls with flourishes and trills. 

“ _Imagine the conversations we’ll have,_ ” he whispers. “ _Imagine the_ sex _we’ll have. Toki. Imagine knowing someone like that._ ”

The music in Toki’s chest rises to join him, seamlessly adding its own harmonies to the mix. “ _I see us,_ ” he says. His voice is scratchy from crying. On the verge of losing consciousness. “ _I see us there._ ” 

“ _One day,_ ” Skwisgaar promises, “ _we’re gonna be like, these wise, ancient, cosmic beings. And we’re gonna look back at ourselves, and laugh at all the stupid shit that scares us now._ ” 

They dwell in this soundscape for a while, letting it gradually dissolve into the hiss of the fire, and the silence of the house, until the blue lights ripple over Toki skin, slipping him under again. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


He’s small, maybe ten. It’s a sunny winter day, and he’s waiting on the concrete steps for his Mom to pick him up from school. He runs towards her as she waves at him from the car window, grandma’s charm bracelet jangling around her wrist. 

This isn’t the red Audi Quattro she drove, that some producer or agent had paid for. It’s a modest four-seater car, like a nice, normal mom would drive. She’s in her mid-thirties, smiling and beautiful, her face unlined and minimally made-up. Dressed in a turquoise cardigan and sensible slacks, of the kind she never would have worn. 

We’re going to meet Dad at the skating rink, she tells him as he climbs into the passenger side, beaming up at her from ear to ear.

When they get there, his Dad scoops him up and spins him around, his straw blond moustache leaving a tickling forehead kiss. Dad is young too, as he never actually knew him, but with the same moustache, the same twinkling gray eyes. They spend the whole afternoon skating, and on the way home, he gets a hot cocoa with extra marshmallows. 

I’m so glad I married a man who can cook, his Mom says, as they sit down to dinner. Lord knows I can hardly open a can of beans. She kisses Dad on the cheek as he places the glass Pyrex dish on the table, red oven mitts on his hands. They all laugh. 

The house is warm and clean, the electric bill is paid, and there is plenty of food in the refrigerator. There are no ashtrays on the kitchen counter, no loose pills around the sink. No strange men staring at him from the sofa. No punching of walls, no throwing of glassware, no screams of ‘I’ll kill you, you whore.’ No hiding in the bathroom, heart pounding so hard it hurts, his little hands covering his ears.

At night, his Mom tucks him into bed, smoothing his hair away from his face. Sweet dreams, Little Dove, she tells him. Tomorrow, I’ll give you a piano lesson.

It’s mid-winter, so her birthday must be coming soon. He’s already made her a card out of construction paper, pasting the colorful cutouts together to create a picture of a forest. He asks her what she wants for her birthday, and her face pinches. 

Will you let me die? 

He looks up at her in confusion, and dawning horror, as she clasps his little hands. 

I’m sorry it wasn’t really like this, she says. I was a bad mother.

Shaking his little head in denial, he tells her she’s the nicest and most beautiful mom in the whole world.

I love you, she says, her grip on his hands turning desperate. But I can’t do this forever. I’m so tired. Sweetie, please: Let me die. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


In the morning, the embers have fallen dormant, muting the pop and hiss of the fire. Instead, the first thing he hears upon waking is the almost silent tinkling of the strings of the Explorer.

He blinks the sleep from his eyes, to see that Toki’s back is facing him, sitting cross-legged at the foot of the mat. Skwisgaar doesn’t move at first, just watching him. 

Out of consideration for everyone sleeping, Toki is using the unplugged Explorer, instead of the semi-acoustic Le Grande. Black wings rise behind him in a tense ‘M’ of concentration, as he swears under his breath, trying and failing to play the same passage again and again. He can sort of hit the tempo, but his fretwork is sloppy; The fingers of his weak hand just keep slipping. 

The tinkling stops, and the house is silent. Skwisgaar watches, still pretending to be unconscious, as Toki throws his body over the guitar and weeps. 


	5. Chapter 5

In his enthusiasm, it didn’t even occur to him. 

Muffled sobs subside as the Explorer is silently lowered onto the floor. The nickel strings don’t wink in the dark, like the stainless steel ones he always prefered. There’s a measure of silence. Then a congested sucking sound.

How are they going to finish the album if Toki can’t play?

His back moves beneath the ski fleece, fabric bunching around his shoulders. When he leans forward, the violet hilt peeks out of his pocket. The very blade that inflicted this devastating wound.

Shrugging off the thermal blankets, Skwisgaar crawls towards the end of the mat, wings extended above him like vertical sails. He presses his face between Toki’s shoulder blades, hugging him from behind. The violet dagger makes him nervous, but he understands Toki’s desire to keep it; To hold onto it, so that it can’t be used against him again. 

Toki tenses, thick trapezius muscles squeezing hard enough to grip a pencil between them. “ _They won’t,_ ” he says. “ _My fingers won’t—_ ” The floorboards creak as he rocks forward onto his haunches. 

Skwisgaar hushes him, rubbing his cheek against the center of Toki’s trembling back. The stone flesh ripples beneath him, resisting his offer of comfort. The wound still isn’t healing. Misery yawns between them, a terrible gap.

“ _It’s gonna be okay,_ ” Skwisgaar promises. He refuses to entertain the possibility that this could be permanent, any more than he would if it were his own arm; Toki’s playing is an extension of his own. “ _Can I take a look at it?_ ” His fingers probe the back of Toki’s elbow, and he is stiffly rebuffed. 

“ _Don’t,_ ” says Toki, cradling it against his belly. “ _Don’t touch it._ ”

“ _Does it hurt?_ ”

“ _No._ ” He twists around. 

His face doesn’t get puffy or irritated from crying. Tears roll down his otherwise still and stony features. So many of those little biological functions, subtle things one wouldn’t even think of, are absent in him. The wound itself is a goreless slit of blue light that doesn’t seem to bleed or seep. Surely Toki has blood of some kind, since his heart beats and there is a tangible pressure in his veins— But Skwisgaar can’t ever remember seeing it. 

Sounds from the bedroom signal that their human hosts are awake, and Toki freezes, wings pulling against his body. The air around him shudders, but his control holds. Now that he’s rested and alert, he should be safe to interact with them. He rubs the tears on his sleeve, rushing to make himself presentable.

Skwisgaar slides his hands up Toki’s lap, holding him by the hips. “ _It’s gonna be okay,_ ” he repeats. “ _I’m gonna heal you._ ”

Toki stares at him, almost affronted. “ _How?_ ” 

“ _I don’t know yet._ ” Skwisgaar starts talking fast. “ _But my powers are growing; I’m learning new things all the time. I can take life apart, and- and put it back together like fucking Lego._ ” He massages Toki’s sides, excitement flooding his palms with light, and producing a kind of heady certainty. “ _If you could just feel— Toki, feel this power._ ” 

Toki droops, allowing himself to be folded into a hug as the pleasant heat and light loosen his stiff limbs. The left arm stays bent against his belly, becoming trapped between them as they sway together. The violet hilt slips further into his pocket, and out of sight.

Skwisgaar lavishes him with healing. The wound still won’t respond, but the rest of Toki does, hungrily drinking in every drop of sunlight Skwisgaar provides. 

If only Toki would look up to him again, the way he used to. But of course, he has seen far too much. The myth of Skwisgaar Skwigelf could never have survived sustained intimate contact with the man himself. The mirage of aloof perfection evaporated under any real scrutiny, revealing an insatiable hunger for validation far too similar to Toki’s own. Now, to win Toki’s faith, he must be everything Toki once mistook him for. 

“ _It’s gonna be okay,_ ” Skwisgaar keeps saying. “ _Because I want it to be okay,_ ” he whispers. He kisses Toki’s neck, enjoying the way Toki yields under his hands. The tightly coiled darkness unravels against him. “ _And I’m gonna get what I want._ ”

Toki closes his eyes, both arms falling slack in his lap. “ _I guess you always do,_ ” he says. 

They ease apart, wingtips lingering against each other’s bodies. Black feathers brush the backs of Skwisgaar’s knuckles in a wordless plea. They will play together, again. Of this, Skwisgaar is certain, if for no other reason than because the alternative is unacceptable to him. 

Serveta strolls into the living room, draped in her Norwegian lambswool sweater. “ _Skwisgaar,_ ” she asks without looking at them, “ _do you know how to restart the fire?_ ”

“ _Well, good morning to you too, Mom,_ ” he retorts. He grins at Toki, grabbing a stick of kindling and squeezing it until his fist is engulfed in sparks. 

She fills the kettle with water for coffee, and takes three bowls from the cabinet for a typical Svalbard breakfast of risgrøt— a thin porridge of rice meal, water, sugar, and cardamom, with raisins added in to prevent scurvy.

“ _You might wanna grab another one,_ ” says Skwisgaar, a smile in his voice. 

She looks up, startled. “ _Toki?_ ” A spike of adrenaline hits her veins, a sforzando leap of several octaves in the resonance of her blood. Her distracted hand gropes for a fourth bowl as she disciplines her expression. “ _Oh, good,_ ” she says. “ _Welcome back._ ” 

The kettle goes on the fire, and when the coffee is ready, they cluster around the little table holding their cups. Serveta pours, the stream wavering. It’s obvious that she has questions, but her survival strategy is to play along with their strangeness. I am at ease with you, says the fist propped daintily under her chin. Nothing scares me; I’ve seen it all.

It’s a bluff, but a good one. She hasn’t always been particularly brave. But she is deeply pragmatic and unsentimental, and these days, Skwisgaar loves her for that. The end of the world is just another situation to be navigated. Self-appointed god-handler is just her latest gig.

“ _Honey!_ ” She cups a hand over her mouth, calling down the hallway to Týr. Warning him.“ _Toki is joining us for breakfast!_ ” Placing hot bowls of risgrøt in front of each of them, she settles back into her chair. 

Toki thanks her and cautiously picks up his spoon. His calm is brittle. They didn’t get to have much of an introduction last time; Now’s his chance to try again. Of course, he’s anxious to make a good impression.

Skwisgaar strokes the center of his back, tracing a soothing bass groove. Relax. Eat. You are welcome here. 

“ _Oh, Toki:_ ” Serveta lowers her coffee, mid-sip. “ _I made yours just like Skwisgaar’s, with an extra cup of sugar. Sorry, I should have asked you whether you like it that way or not._ ”

Toki nods, taking a wolfish bite. The taste of straight sugar makes his back rumble with pleasure beneath Skwisgaar’s fingertips. How considerate of her, Skwisgaar can feel him thinking. More than the taste, the gesture of acceptance lifts his spirits. 

Týr appears, freshly shaven and strenuously cheerful. “ _Good morning!_ ” he beams, taking a seat beside his canny wife. “ _Toki! So glad you could, um— make it._ ” 

Toki glances up from his porridge, tucked wings retracting even further. “ _Hi._ ” The spoon slips from his hand ( _through_ his hand?) clinking against the rim of his bowl. 

“ _We weren’t really introduced before._ ” Týr smiles at him. Like Serveta, he seems to sense that this is his best strategy. Skwisgaar wonders if they’ve actually discussed it. 

“ _Nice to. Meet you._ ” Toki tries to smile back, with mixed success. He takes a fortifying sip of his coffee before venturing to tell them, “ _I brought you a present._ ”

“ _Oh, that’s—_ ” Serveta looks nervous. “ _You didn’t have to do that._ ” Stock pleasantries, as if he were a normal houseguest, and this were a normal house. Pretend or not, it seems to be working to put Toki at ease. 

“ _It’s two deer,_ ” he explains, using the blade of his spoon to segregate the raisins from his rice mixture. He used to do the same thing with the coins of banana Jean Pierre would put in his oatmeal, in order to save them for last. “ _I hunted them,_ ” he says, swallowing. “ _They’re just outside. The cold should keep them fresh._ ” 

“ _Oh, thank you,_ ” she says. “ _We’ll eat well this week then, won’t we? Right, Honey?_ ” She squeezes Týr’s arm.

“ _Yes, we will,_ ” Týr agrees. 

Toki settles back in his seat, satisfied with this. They eat in silence, listening to the fire. 

See? Skwisgaar hums. It’s okay. 

Toki hums back in harmony, savoring his raisins. The contrast of bitter coffee makes the porridge even sweeter. The heat of the fire pervades the room. It’s so good to come home to this cozy breakfast, after… The fuzzy hum fades out.

Where were you? Skwisgaar bumps his thigh. Will you tell me?

Not now, Toki thinks.

“ _I’m gonna go check on Nathan’s dad today,_ ” Skwisgaar says aloud. “ _See how he’s doing after I, you know._ ” 

Toki lays the spoon across his empty bowl. “ _I’ll just. Stay here,_ ” he says. Skwisgaar scans him for signs of distress, but his tone is inscrutable. Of course, it is reasonable for him to lie low. It’s probably not a great time to impose him on Nathan’s parents. But the thought of Toki sitting in here with nothing for company but the two guitars he can’t play gives Skwisgaar pause.

“ _Well,_ ” Týr offers, as though reading his mind, “ _if you’re not busy with anything else today Toki, do you wanna come out and help me butcher these deer?_ ” 

Busy. As if the humanoid instantiation of Death would have somewhere to be at eleven thirty, or whenever. 

Toki’s forehead ripples. “ _Are you… sure? You want…?_ ”

“ _Of course,_ ” says Týr. “ _It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other._ ” 

His fear is palpable. No doubt Toki can sense it, too. But his effort to conceal it, and Toki’s reaction, are encouraging. Maybe the surreal play-acting will work on Toki, just as it has worked on Skwisgaar. Spending time together, like a real human family has been good for him; He knows Týr and his mother are just playing along, but the thought that they might be doing it partly to make him feel better, actually does make him feel better.

“ _Okay._ ” Toki tries to look enthusiastic. “ _That sounds good._ ” Bluish fingers grip the seat of his chair. 

I’ll be careful with them, Skwisgaar can feel him thinking. I promise. 

I know you will, Skwisgaar confirms. I trust you. 

He has to, if for no other reason than because the alternative is unacceptable to him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The Explosions live in a red house towards the middle of the row. The dimly lit windows are clouded with frost, making it difficult to see inside. The rusty paint on the door is beginning to peel. Skwisgaar stares at the paint flakes, trying to decide what he’s going to say. His English is coming back to him in fits and starts, but it’s still not great. 

What a stupid language. What’s the difference between ‘couch’ and ‘sofa,’ or ‘cup’ and ‘glass’? The Anglos are truly a drab and sexless people. They have a million hopelessly redundant terms for kitchen utensils, and yet only one for all the different varieties of orgasm. Sick of standing in the cold, he eventually gives up on composing a script for himself and just knocks. 

Nathan answers the door. “Woah. Hey.” The glow of the fireplace outlines him in orange. He’s dressed in the same flannel bathrobe, loosely belted for modesty. 

Skwisgaar stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Cames to. Says hallo.” His wings ruffle without his permission. Why does Nathan make him nervous, all of a sudden? The Explorer is strapped to his back, partly because of the irrational fear that Nathan won’t recognize him without it, and partly to keep it away from Toki.

“Um, okay. What’s up?” Nathan blinks one set of eyelids, then the other.

“Says hallo to… your dads. Ahh…”

“Oh, yeah.” 

“Ams dis? Euuughhhh…. goods time?”

He glances over his shoulder. “Sure.”

Skwisgaar stares past him, waiting to be let in, while Nathan fills the doorway, staring back. “Deh… hots?” He points. “Deh hots ams goink. Out from deh ins.”

“Oh, right.” Nathan steps aside. “I keep forgetting about that.” He turns around, calling to the fireplace. “Hey, Mom. It’s Skwisgaar.” 

Shadows move against the back wall. There are mumbled curses, or maybe prayers. The moment Skwisgaar crosses the threshold, Nathan’s mom is pulling him into a hug. 

“Em. Hallo.” He freezes, mortified by the physical urge to hug back. It’s a reflex almost as natural to his body as blinking. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, waiting for her to let go. 

“Mom. Come on,” Nathan grumbles. 

“Bless you,” she is saying. “Your mother was right.” She withdraws, still gripping his upper arms. The resonance of her emotions jars him. Normally, he hates to be touched without prior notice, but he finds himself warming to her quickly. “There really are such things as miracles,” she warbles. Gratitude is a percussive, energetic line. 

He tries to imagine himself through her eyes: How dazzling he must appear to the mortal beneficiaries of his fickle blessing. It’s exhilarating to think about. 

“Ams no ‘ting.” He shrugs, feeling himself glow with pride. Being so fucking powerful is awesome, actually. The corners of his mouth won’t stay down. 

“I thought I’d lost him forever.” She shakes her head, scraping at her tear duct with one finger. Her hair is longer than Skwisgaar remembers, pushed back from her forehead with a fleece ear warmer. Collecting herself, she takes a step back and extends her arms in a pantomime of his wings. “Look at you!” she says. “Aren’t you something? Nathan, don’t be rude!”

“What?” Nathan frowns.

“Offer our guest some coffee!” 

He turns to Skwisgaar, rolling his eyes. “Do you. _Hnm_. Want some. Coffee?”

“Nej, t’anks.” Skwisgaar preens. He was anxious for Nathan’s parents to like him, he realizes. But he needn’t have been. All mortals love him. The things Serveta whispered to him when he was in pain are true. Those chirpy, baby bird feelings warm him, just thinking of her. He is all light and goodness. He is everything she said he would be. Why wouldn’t Nathan’s mom want to hug him? 

“Well come in, come in!” she orders, walking them back over to the fireplace. 

“Sorry,” Nathan says to him. “My parents are weird.” 

Skwisgaar shakes his head. “Nej, de är normals.” Before, this might have been said with envy, but now it’s said with wry affection. 

On the other side of the central hearth, Nathan’s dad sits in the middle of the sofa, swaddled in heavy blankets. His square face looks naked and strange without the push broom moustache, his new skin an ill fit for him. Unnaturally pale and smooth, because it’s never seen the sun. Skwisgaar contents himself with the thought that it just needs to be broken in.

“Hallo,” he says. “Herr Explosion.” His wings point diagonally away from his body and towards the floor in what he guesses is a kind of bow. 

When no response is forthcoming, Nathan’s mom leans on the armrest, squeezing her husband’s shoulder. “He’s just a little tired,” she stage whispers. 

“I’m fine,” he protests. 

“It’s a lot to take in,” she continues. “You know, what with the end of the world and everything. Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell _you_.” 

Nathan’s dad leans forward in his seat, shucking the blankets. “And what are you supposed to be?” he asks. His melody is tremulous, but he’s determined not to show any weakness. Especially not in front of whatever it is he thinks Skwisgaar is. 

“Oscar!” his wife scolds him. “What kind of a thing is that to say to Nathan’s friend? Or to any god, for that matter?” Convinced of Skwisgaar’s benevolence, her melody is remarkably steady and unafraid. 

“I guess I just don’t understand this world anymore.” He crosses his arms.

“He’s just a little grumpy,” she apologizes to Skwisgaar again. “He doesn’t like to be confused. And you are, I mean— You have to admit, you are pretty out of the ordinary.” She gives him a pointed look. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying, you can’t really expect people to know how— Well, how a thing like you would want to be addressed.” 

“Mommmm!” Nathan groans. “Stop.” 

“I’m not _calling_ him a ‘thing,’” she clarifies. “I’m just _asking_ him how he wants to be called.”

“Du kan kalla mig ‘Skwisgaar,’” says Skwisgaar, muffling a laugh at Nathan’s expense. Their eyes meet, Nathan’s visible embarrassment making it impossible for him to keep a straight face. “Jag ams, you knows, basicallies just eughhh, real cools guy whos plays deh guitars, and also ams happens to bes a god.” 

Nathan’s mom gets up from leaning against the sofa. “Well, there you go,” she says, like they’ve settled the matter. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything to drink, Skwisgaar?” She stoops to pick up an empty cup from the table, and uses it to gesture towards the kitchen.

He demures, wings pointing out and down in the same weird curtsy as before. “Just comes to says hallo.” He turns to Nathan’s dad. “Sees, is you ams okej?” 

Oscar’s jaw shifts. The fear he muted earlier escapes him in a shrill reprise. “Hmm,” he says. “‘Skwisgaar,’ is it? What kinda name is that?”

“Ams svenska. What I thinks you calls ‘Swee-dich.’”

They’ve met before, of course, but it’s not clear how far back Oscar remembers. Tuneless confusion and pain throw his thoughts off beat. His mind struggles over the gaps, like a short fingered novice straining to reach the distant E string. The missing pieces of his soul can heal, can be replaced with new memories to create a different, but still more or less whole, version of him. But this will take time. 

“I’m told you brought me back from the dead,” he says. His tone is somewhat accusatory. 

Skwisgaar crouches, bringing them to eye level. Shimmering wings sweep the dusty wood floor. “Is true.”

Oscar holds his fearsome, all-blue gaze, trying to be brave. “Well. I don’t know what to say to that.”

He seems functional, but it occurs to Skwisgaar that he may require further adjustment. There could be all sorts of unanticipated consequences of bringing an adult human body into the world fully formed, without letting it develop from infancy. Does it have the right microbiome? Will there be problems with the immune system? Granted, Skwisgaar’s working knowledge of biology is that of a high school dropout who’s watched a lot of science documentaries while high, but if there’s one thing he does know, it’s that this shit is incredibly complicated. He’s still figuring it out through practice and feel. 

“Is you sorries I does it?” he asks softly. He can sense Nathan looming above him, prepared to intervene if his father becomes too upset. 

Oscar looks at his hands, and Skwisgaar reaches out to hold one. 

“Is okej?” He strokes the back of it with his thumb, sending gentle, low-pitched signals along the radial nerve. Trust me, his mind resonates. You are safe here. You are solid and real. Your wife and son love you. Embrace life again, and the pain will start to go away.

The effect is immediate. He can feel the tension unwinding, the resonance reaching to where trauma is stored in knots. 

“Just fine.” Oscar sniffs. “Gonna be just fine.” He straightens his back and withdraws his hand. “I was in the Marines, you know,” he says. The skin around his eyes is pink and thin. “I don’t believe in- In complaining; I believe in toughing it out.” 

Skwisgaar copies his posture, shoulders back, hands on his thighs. “I ams believings deh same way,” he says. “‘Deh soul ams dyed wiffs deh colors of its thoughts.’ We ams forst _choosings_ to bes okej. Everyt’ing in lifes ams flowings from dere. But… it ams also helpings to has deh gods on yous side.” He winks, feeling extremely pleased with himself, before standing. 

Oscar’s eyes track him upward, the bubble of trust and vulnerability bursting as Skwisgaar’s influence recedes. “Hang on,” he demands. “I still don’t understand. What _are_ you? Are you- Are you Christ, or something? Is there something you want from us?”

“Nej. Not reallies.” He looks at Nathan, his chest filling with a fluttery combination of shyness and pride. “Like I says, I ams pretties much just a real cools guy whos plays deh guitars.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Afterwards, he and Nathan walk along the edge of the water, watching the smokestacks on the horizon. The smell of burning coal sours their tongues. It explains the little specks of black dust in the drinking water, piped in from the mountains where the exhaust clouds from the power plant eventually settle. Coal is stored in the ice, and mixed into the coffee they serve here, and sprinkled from the showerheads, and then stored in the people’s livers. 

Skwisgaar is quiet, waiting for Nathan to take the lead in conversation. Rose found him some boots that actually fit, so he’s at last spared the discomfort of walking barefoot in the snow. Cozy and satisfied with the work of his day, he is content to walk and listen to the rushing wall of sound, like the inside of a nautilus shell, that emanates from Nathan’s mind. The dock creaks under their weight, green water lapping between the slats of black wood. Salty and fresh. It’s so peaceful here, that he wishes they could stay.

“We’ve gotta start moving soon,” Nathan tells him.

Skwisgaar swings the Explorer around to the front of his body, feeling the nylon strap hug the seam of his wing. It feels good to hold it, even when he isn’t playing. He nods to show that he’s listening, fingers resting on the strings.

“I mean like, get all these people on boats, or something.” Nathan’s robe has fallen open, revealing his twitching gills. They don’t seem to like being covered. His cool, slippery skin shimmers under the dock lights, scales glinting like silver studs.

“Where ams we goink?” Skwisgaar asks. He strums a pentatonic scale, ears prickling with the hush song of Arctic algae. 

“Cuba.” 

“Coo-ba?” He raises an eyebrow. “Whys dere?”

Nathan smiles. “I had a vision of our reunion concert happening there,” he says. “We play all these new songs— Ones we haven’t even written yet. And these songs are what unite what’s left of humanity. Somehow— I don’t know how —we stop the zombies, and bring an end to the apocalypse. And it all happens in Cuba.” 

“Ams dat where Pickle and Mordorface ams at?” 

It would be nice to go somewhere warm. Or even just to see the sun again. The perma-night on Svalbard is kind of a bummer.

“I don’t know. But if things go right, they’ll find us. I don’t know exactly how it’ll go down, but I see all of us there, together.”

“And what ifs t’ings don’t goes right?” Skwisgaar asks, fretting faster. 

Nathan stops walking. He doesn’t have to ask what this means. They’ve both been circling around it. “I talked to Toki a little,” he says, looking out at the sea. “I mean, mainly we just said hi. I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. But I saw him.”

“Ja.” Skwisgaar stands beside him, wiggling his toes inside his new shearling boots. “I knows. Hims Anglish ams… uns-prackstice ja, buts. Gets betters soons, I t’ink.” This isn’t really what Nathan is concerned about, he knows. 

“Is he like? Okay?” Nathan asks. “He seemed, uh. I don’t know. Down.” When Skwisgaar doesn’t answer him immediately, Nathan prods: “Look, I don’t wanna put this all on you, but Toki could get really dangerous, really fast if we don’t keep an eye on him. If you know what might be up with him—”

“He ams horts.” Skwisgaar’s chin hits his collar bone, fingers flying. The urge to protect Toki from accusations of wrongdoing makes him defensive. Maybe some hypothetical, alternate timeline Toki could be dangerous; But _his_ Toki is good. Careful, considerate, self aware, and committed to self improvement. Not childish, wrathful, jealous, or controlling, like some other Tokis might be. “Hims ärm,” he says finally. “Deh Halv Man make a way to horts him wit’.” 

Nathan’s tune shifts, fists closing as he begins to absorb the implications of this. “Shit,” he says. “His arm? Like? Fuck.” Fear for the album, the future, plays across his face.

“Is okej.” Skwisgaar pivots. “I fixes it. Soons.” Confidence swells his lungs, as he begins to process what Nathan has revealed to him. 

“Wait; If you can fix it, why haven’t you done that already?”

“Amn’ts ehhh… Normals kinda horts. Deh Halv Man knows how to… horts so dat it can’ts heals.”

“Then— fuck. What makes you think you can heal him, then?” Nathan’s profile scrunches, hair falling forward as he studies the freezing sea foam at his feet. “Why didn’t you mention this before? This is, like. Really bad.” He looks back up at Skwisgaar, glowering in frustration. “What are you smiling about?”

Skwisgaar sways closer, unable to contain himself. Excitement froths like champagne bubbles through his veins. “In yous visions,” he asks, “you ams seens Dethklok plays togedder agains, ja?”

The line in Nathan’s forehead deepens. Slowly, he begins to nod. “Yeah.” 

“And Toki ams dere? Playinks too?” 

“Yeah.”

Skwisgaar beams. “Den I fixes it.” His wings beat, muscles pulling in his chest. Power tingles at his fingertips, the light making him so buoyant that it’s hard to keep his feet on the ground. “I fixes everyt’ing. I ams unstoppables.” With the advantage of a few inches (and a nice pair of snow boots) he peers down at Nathan, shredding effortlessly and extending his beautiful plumage. “I ams Skwisgaar Skwigelf. What’s deh hells you gonna do about it?”

Nathan’s tune brightens. It’s hard to argue with Skwisgaar’s reasoning. “Ya know,” he smirks, “you’re still an arrogant bastard, even if you’re right.”

They stand at the edge of the dock, ice floes bobbing beneath them. Nathan’s breath is cool, Skwisgaar notices, hardly condensing in the air, while his own forms white steam. 

“Das oukay,” he says. “I likes it dis way.”

Nathan’s lips taste like salt water and coffee. 

“Sorry.” He staggers backward, emerald membranes sliding defensively over his eyes. “I didn’t. Mean to do that.” Skwisgaar can hear his pulse pounding in confusion and embarrassment, even though he was the one who went in for a kiss. 

It’s him, Skwisgaar realizes. The vibration. The way he and Toki communicate. The way he can calm people down, and make them trust him. His own feelings are influencing Nathan’s feelings. 

The Explorer drops from his hands, swinging against him by the strap. “Nej,” he says. “Don’t be sorries.” He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his body, to stop it from subliminally vocalizing his desires. It didn’t even occur to him that he could _make_ someone… But no, that isn’t what happened. He doesn’t _make_ people love him. He merely makes himself _lovable_. It’s not the same thing.

Nathan closes his robe. “I just.” He struggles. “I’ve really. Missed you,” he says.

Pulse slowing, Skwisgaar leans against the wooden railing. Toki was so understanding, when he confessed to having feelings for Nathan. This feels like such a betrayal on his part, even though _Nathan_ is the one who kissed _him_. They can’t do this, not behind Toki’s back. 

“Is my faults,” he says. “I’s lurings you.”

“Oh, what, because you’re so hot?” Nathan laughs, rubbing his face in self-recrimination. “I mean. Yeah, I guess your arrogance is kinda hot.”

Skwisgaar looks back up the hill towards the settlement. Storm clouds of coal dust dim the green stars. 

Nathan grips the railing, facing into the wind. “I just hope it’s justified.” 

  
  
  
  
  


He comes home to find them all engrossed in a game of Scrabble, three steaming cups of cocoa on the table. With the fireplace behind them, they could be a passable Christmas card. Though Toki makes for a somewhat ominous Christmas angel.

Týr leans over the board, prodding the wooden tiles with the end of his pencil. “ _Good job,_ ” he says, counting. “ _That’s thirty-nine points._ ”

“E-V-E-N-T-Y-R?” Serveta asks, incredulous. “ _What kind of word is that? You mean_ Ä-V-E-N-T-Y-R.”

Toki shakes his head, smiling broadly. “ _Nuh-uh. It’s the Norwegian spelling. Besides, there’s no Ä tile in Scrabble._ ”

“ _Yes there is!_ ” She picks up one of the pieces from her tray and shows it to him. “ _I drew the little umlaut on there. It just keeps rubbing off!_ ”

“ _Well, I’m letting him have it,_ ” Týr says, marking it down on his pad of paper. 

“ _Fine._ ” She leans back, rolling the sleeves of her wool sweater up to the elbows. “ _But that means you have to give me_ flipperförälder.” 

Skwisgaar leaves his wet boots in the plastic draining tray by the door and goes to dry his feathers in front of the fire. “ _Wow,_ ” he smiles. “ _I guess everyone’s been having a great time without me._ ” 

They eat some of the deer for dinner, packing the rest away in the ice box for later. With some canned vegetables and spices, it makes a good stew. Serveta and Týr laugh, referencing some sitcom Skwisgaar hasn’t seen, and he nudges Toki’s leg under the table. You see? he thinks. They love you. I knew they would.

At bedtime, Skwisgaar makes Toki sit in front of him on the floor while he perches on one of the low stools to detangle his hair. It hasn’t been properly combed since Québec. Listening to Toki talk about his day with Týr, Skwisgaar’s mind begins to stray. He doesn’t want to puncture Toki’s good mood. He feels obligated to tell him about the kiss, but now doesn’t seem like the right time.

“ _I can feel you thinking,_ ” Toki says, nuzzling his leg. “ _What’s wrong?_ ”

Skwisgaar holds a section of hair, gently working out the knots from end to root. “ _It’s complicated,_ ” he says. “ _I’ll tell you later._ ” 

Toki twists around to look at him. “ _Why can’t you tell me now?_ ”

“ _I just need a little more time to work this one thing out before I tell you about it,_ ” says Skwisgaar, steering Toki’s head to face forward again. The smell of burning has faded from his hair and clothes.

“ _Why? I thought we were doing ‘radical honesty.’_ ”

“ _Well—_ ” Skwisgaar snorts. Leave it to Toki to use his own reasoning against him. “ _Why can’t you tell me where you were for the past two days, then?_ ”

“ _Fine._ ” The darkness prickles with static. “ _It can wait._ ”

Skwisgaar sighs through his nose, giving a final comb-through to make sure he hasn’t missed any knots. “ _You hold all kinds of things back from me,_ ” he says. “ _I don’t complain. You’re allowed to have your own private thoughts. I just think… radical honesty should be a general goal._ ” He gathers the hair behind Toki’s ears, running his nails over the scalp. Satisfied with his work, he puts the stool aside and joins Toki on the floor in front of the waning fire. They sit facing each other, legs and wings sprawled out in opposite directions. 

“ _Anyway,_ ” says Toki, “ _I was gonna say before: When we were talking today, Týr_ _called himself my father in law._ ” He picks at a pill of lint on his pants. “ _Doesn’t that make you my husband?_ ”

As the one sitting closer to the fire, Skwisgaar props his elbow on the hearthstone. “ _I mean…_ ” he hems. Where ‘boyfriend’ sounds inadequate, ‘husband’ sounds intimidating.

Lint vanquished, Toki looks up to plead with him. “ _Can we get married?_ ”

“ _How? There’s no government, there’s no church. Who’s gonna marry us?_ ”

“ _You don’t need any of those things,_ ” he insists. Skwisgaar wonders if he’s been thinking about this all day long. It sounds a little rehearsed. “ _Marriage is a commitment you make in front of God._ ”

“ _Toki:_ ” Skwisgaar’s head lolls, as he allows himself a moment of self-satisfied amusement. “ _We_ are _God!_ ”

“ _No, I mean the real God,_ ” says Toki, apparently serious. “ _The one who made us. The one who’s running this whole Apocalypse._ ”

Skwisgaar scoffs. “ _There’s no such thing._ ”

“ _How do you know?_ ” Toki asks. This clearly isn’t the direction he was trying to go in when he brought up the idea of marriage. “ _The Bible talks about Angels as servants of God. Maybe that’s what we are!_ ”

Would that make the Half Man a Fallen Angel? Like Lucifer? Skwisgaar doesn’t ask. 

“ _Come here._ ” He stretches himself across the mat, offering Toki his hand, and they tumble together, long legs sticking off the end. The weakened fret hand lurks at Toki’s side, the stronger pick hand gripping Skwisgaar’s waist. 

“ _We’re going to Cuba,_ ” Skwisgaar says. 

Toki settles against him, tucking his legs. His breath slows, tension releasing, like ‘whatever you say.’

“ _Nathan says that’s where we’re gonna meet up with Pickles and Murderface again. And after I heal you, Dethklok is gonna play a reunion concert there. And somehow, it’s gonna save the world._ ” 

It’s hot against Skwisgaar’s neck, not cool like Nathan’s breath. The tickling vapor ruffles his hair, and sends a wave of goosebumps over his back. 

Toki’s eyes are closed. “ _That sounds nice,_ ” he murmurs.

Skwisgaar was kind of hoping for more of a reaction. He lies on his side, watching Toki’s eyeballs move behind their purplish lids. The faucet goes off, and the lights are turned out in the other room, as Serveta and Týr finish brushing their teeth and head off to bed. 

“ _I’ll marry you in Cuba,_ ” he says. “ _How about that?_ ”

Toki’s eyes fly open.

“ _After things calm down a little bit. I’ll let you embarrass me in front of my mom, and Týr, and Nathan, and Pickles, and Murderface, and everyone we know,_ ” Skwisgaar says, getting a faceful of beard halfway through. The good arm squeezes the breath out of him, the other one folding over it for support, as Toki murders him with kisses. But no God, Skwisgaar thinks privately, feeling petulant. Maybe it’s stupid, but Toki’s occasional boughts of Christianity make him a little jealous. Why does Toki still crave some higher cosmic authority, when he has all the deity he should ever need right here?

It could be that the power is starting to go to his head. 

“ _Nathan called me an arrogant bastard today,_ ” he says. “ _Do you think I am?_ ”

“ _No,_ ” Toki deadpans. “ _My Skwisgaar? Arrogant? Never._ ”

Skwisgaar stretches. “ _Ha, ha._ ” It feels so luxurious to lie here, soaking up the heat, even on a foam mat on the floor. His surroundings hardly matter, because his body itself is the luxury. “ _I just…_ ” he yawns and tucks his limbs back in, pulling Toki against him. “ _I think I love myself,_ ” he says. “ _Is that so wrong?_ ” 

It only seems fair that if he’s doomed to roam the Earth for eons, using his powers for the benefit of humanity, that he should get to act pretty smug about it. This magnificent body is his, after all. His to live in, and use, and enjoy. There’s no rule that says he has to use it to help anyone else. He’s just that generous. The urges are there to motivate him, to make him act nice— but in the end, it’s his choice to obey them.

“ _You said I was the radiant center of the universe._ ” 

“ _Well,_ ” Toki laughs, “ _it’s not as romantic when you say it about yourself._ ”

Skwisgaar licks his neck, just to lick it. He nibbles his way up Toki’s face, feeling wonderfully frothy and absurd, and licks the inside of his ear. “ _Think of how long we’re gonna spend with ourselves,_ ” he says. “ _We_ have to _love ourselves._ ”

“ _Well._ ” Toki closes his eyes again. “ _I think that’s easier for you than it is for me._ ”

“ _You can love yourself,_ ” Skwisgaar whispers. “ _I know you can, because_ I _love you._ ” 

Toki doesn’t respond to this, his head resting soundly in the bow between Skwisgaar’s armpit and chest. 

“ _I love that you wanted to do that stupid Secret Santa thing,_ ” Skwisgaar says. “ _Christmas was always pretty… hit or miss, when I was a kid. I love that you tried to do things like that for us, even though we were all dicks to you for it._ ”

He rakes his fingers through Toki’s freshly combed hair. Toki’s mind is alert and listening, his chest purring with contentment, even as he pretends to be asleep. 

“ _I love your cooking,_ ” Skwisgaar continues. “ _I love that you know how to make things with your hands. And how to dig a well, and start a fire. And how to fight._ ”

“ _I love your guitar playing; Your passion, your energy, your sharp ear. I love how dynamic and unpredictable you can be, especially live. The way you play off everybody else, and absorb the audience’s mood. The way you’re always right there, in the moment._ ”

“ _I love your body. Your power. The way it looks. The way it feels. You’re… physically magnificent. I love having someone else, like me, to share all this with. And I love that that someone is you._ ” 

“ _And I love how strong you are. Actually, I’m jealous of it. You’ve been through so much fucking shit; In your previous life, and in this one. But you’ve never let it destroy you. Here you are._ ” He cups the back of Toki’s skull, bringing their foreheads together. Toki’s warm breath sighs against his face. “ _Here you are._ ”


	6. Chapter 6

On January 1st, 2012 (so sayeth the sages), in the five-hundred and sixty-seventh day of the Doomstar, Serveta Skwigelf, high priestess of Svalbard and mother of their god, assembled her followers to announce their coming voyage to the Promised Land of Coffee and Rum.

A roar of whispers filled the air. They crowded into the auditorium of the Spitzbergen Science Center, clutching their wool caps and straining towards her as she stood on a platform before a defunct IMAX screen, marching back and forth like a general in her long blue coat. The portents had been taken, she told them. The path before them was clear. All their patience and devotion would soon be rewarded: They would see the sun again.

A group of women came forward, forming a line at the foot of the stage, to present her with garlands of bell heather and Arctic willow. She accepted them with great ceremony, thanking each of them for their humble offerings. Your god will be pleased, she told them. 

One woman seized Serveta’s hand, holding it against her face. Thank you, Ma’am, she wept. We would be lost without you. Serveta patted her on the head, whispering something in her ear. The sex ratio on Svalbard was not in their favor, and in this lawless world, the fear of divine punishment was what kept the men in line. She had promised them a god who loved women, and who would look upon any man who transgressed against them with particular harshness. For this reason, they had been among her most enthusiastic followers.

  
  
  


He flies overhead, following her as she cuts across the tundra in a silver snowmobile. She is leading him out to the Global Seed Vault, north of the settlement at Longyearbyen. He can already see their destination in the distance: The vault is built into the side of a mountain, with only a tall rectangular entryway exposed. The gray obelisk juts out of the snow, a square of brilliant green glass shining from the top of it like a lighthouse beacon. Hundreds of triangular prisms of mirror and steel are embedded in the window, a kaleidoscopic emerald eye blazing out across the dark Arctic horizon. 

He dives, landing just ahead of where he can see she’s about to park. The snow is knee high in places, forming smooth, windswept dunes, and when she climbs down from the driver’s seat, her boots land with a crunch. She is bundled from head to toe, her eyes hidden behind dark ski goggles. It’s about thirty degrees below Celsius. 

“ _Do you want me to… carry you?_ ” he offers, watching her struggle against the terrain. 

Her _pffft_ is muffled by a scarf. “ _I’m old,_ ” she says, “ _but I’m not that old._ ”

He walks backwards in front of her, carving a path through the snow and shielding her from the wind with his wings. “ _What are those for?_ ” he asks, nodding at the dozens of handmade wooden crosses that stand at the foot of the mountain. 

“ _The scientists,_ ” she says. “ _They were killed, when everything first went down._ ” 

The wind rises, and she folds her arms across her chest, trapping her gloved hands under her armpits for warmth. He can feel her trembling. 

“ _When people first realized we were alone in the world, and there was no outside help coming to the island, they turned on each other._ ” Her breath becomes labored as she trudges up the hill. “ _There was a sort of war, between the miners and the scientists. Eventually, the miners felt bad about it, I suppose, and wanted to memorialize them._ ”

The sight of what he assumes to be graves makes his fingers tingle. Could he? _Should_ he?

“ _Are they buried there?_ ” he asks. 

“ _The ground was too hard,_ ” she shouts over the wind. “ _We couldn’t bury the bodies; So we burned them. It seemed more dignified than leaving them to get eaten by the polar bears._ ” 

The steel ramp leading up to the entrance is treacherous, cycles of permafrost thawing and freezing having left the surface as slick as a skating rink. She grips the railing, boots sliding beneath her as she climbs the slight incline. Up close, the stainless steel facade looks like the doors of a massive refrigerator. She lets go of the railing with one hand to reach into her pocket for the keys and slips, falling on the ice with a metallic clang.

“ _Mom—_ ” He whisks her up off the ground. “ _Are you okay?_ ” The keys fall from her hand, as she stumbles, dazed and unresponsive in his arms. There’s a thin crack in the lens of her goggles. He grips the railing to stabilize her, the skin of transparent ice melting under his hand.

  
  
  


He had watched her mega church schtick from the projection booth, waiting for her to invoke him. Dusty audio equipment, a suspiciously stained couch— It was a lot like hanging out in the green room before going on stage, except that there was no booze. 

When she pointed to the ceiling, he made his way to the edge of the balcony and extended his wings. If this had been a show, he would have been spot lit; But as it was, he drew on the ambient lifeforce to give himself a suitably celestial glow. He wondered what the scientists who used to lecture here would have thought of the venue being used as a makeshift church. They’d never gone to church when he was a kid, and he’d hardly known of anyone who did back in Sweden. All he knew about religion was what he had gleaned from osmosis and Toki. 

Heads turned, the auditorium erupting in curses and gasps as he swooped down to join his mother on the platform. He stood tall, stretching his wings wide for a moment, to give them a good look, before folding them behind him. At her insistence, his hair had been neatly braided and his clothes were freshly cleaned. He maintained a serene, benevolent expression, fighting the urge to break character and laugh, as he raised a bolt of lightning above his head and hurled it at his feet. The crowd was riveted into silence, hundreds of hearts skipping at the sight of him. Their emotions washed over him, and he closed his eyes for a moment, surrounded by their wonder and worship. Their hope was so poignant, because they were so fragile. The threads tethering each of them to life trembled like plucked strings. 

  
  
  


Beyond the doors is a long concrete tunnel. He lays her down against one of the curved walls, removing the goggles and unwinding the scarf from around her mouth to reveal a split in her cheek where the edge of the lens has cut into her skin. He heals her, one hand on her forehead and the other supporting her back. The wound closes, and she groans, wiping the blood on her sleeve. 

“ _Oh,_ ” she says, exhausted. It’s quieter in the dark tunnel, away from the roaring wind outside.

He lifts her chin with his fingertips, checking her eyes. “ _Are you hurt anywhere else?_ ” he asks, healing her extra, just to be sure. 

Dark gloves cover her face, and she begins to cry. He puts his arms around her shoulders, trying to stop her from shaking. “ _Why are you so good to me, Little Dove?_ ” she asks. She was always prone to flamboyant displays of emotion, but she hated showing authentic tears. She hated when crying wasn’t a tool that she could control. Whenever she cried in front of him for real, she was usually drunk. 

He tilts his head to one side, watching her with curiosity as she collapses in a delicate vibrato of grief and shame. Her tears are minimal and quiet, her weight slumped against the iced concrete behind her. When they first arrived here, he found her comfortingly unchanged; But it seems this wasn’t exactly the case. Since the end began, something in her has given way.

“ _Because I love you,_ ” he says, after realizing he’s just been staring at her like an alien.

She snorts. “ _And all these years—_ ” A thin string of clear mucus makes her upper lip glitter. “ _I thought you hated me._ ”

“ _So did I,_ ” he says. 

She squints against the cold. “ _And what changed?_ ”

  
  
  
  


Staring into the overhead stage lights had left him with an afterimage of green circles burned into his retinas which became superimposed onto the faces of the crowd. 

She beckoned him closer. My son, she said. You have returned to me, just as you promised. Do you come to us with good news? Do you come to lead us out of the darkness? She proved remarkably adept at delivering this pseudo-catechistic dialogue with a straight face.

I do, he said, blending his human and angelic voices to create an echo. 

The people have made you these gifts as a symbol of their love. Do you accept them?

Yes, he said. I accept them. He bowed to let her place a garland of flowers on his head. He was enjoying putting on this show with her; It felt good to be on the same team. 

She embraced him, and he leaned his forehead on her shoulder, to show them that he was indeed her child, and that he revered this mortal woman as his mother. Great entrance, she whispered to him under the noise of the crowd. Right on cue. And he hugged her tighter, loving her so terribly in that moment that he could have cried, if they hadn’t been in front of all these people. Or maybe not; It was precisely the strange, ritualized nature of what they were doing that had allowed him to open himself up to it so fully. 

He was glad she didn’t give him much to say, and that all he had to do was stand there looking supernatural. He had appeared, and acknowledged her as his mother, which was all the spectacle she needed. If anyone had doubted her authority before, they wouldn’t dare now that she had been so dramatically vindicated. He watched with fond amusement as she gave the people their orders in the cadences of a sermon. They would set sail for Cuba as soon as the winds were favorable. What they couldn’t take with them on the ship, they would be forced to leave behind. 

The cry went up: Some didn’t want to leave Svalbard. They had seen the news footage, before it all cut to black. How would they survive, if they abandoned what they’d built here? How much of the world beyond their settlement was even left? What about the armies of the dead?

Serveta called them to order, raising both hands above her head as if to lift the ceiling. She asked Skwisgaar, rhetorically, what would happen to those who might stay behind. 

They will die, he said gravely. On the set of _Blood Ocean_ , he’d been the one who kept ruining takes by laughing. 

  
  
  


He stands, offering her his hand and pulling her to her feet. She brushes herself off and adjusts the ski goggles to sit on top of her head, two wisps of pale hair coming loose from the braided crown to frame the sides of her face. The healing has banished her tremble. 

“ _I used to lie to myself a lot,_ ” he says, walking beside her. “ _About what I wanted, and what I was feeling. But I can’t really do that anymore._ ”

As they get further away from the entrance, and the darkness becomes more complete, she produces a metal flashlight from the pocket of her utility suit and switches it on, aiming the yellow beam at the back of the tunnel. She shines it around, exploring. A network of copper pipes runs the length of the ceiling, crusted with icicles that look ready to fall on their heads at any moment.

“ _When I became like this,_ ” he says, his hands opening and closing at his sides, “ _it was like everything came to the surface. And I realized I didn’t actually hate you; I was just hurt._ ”

He can feel her tense beside him, her glove creaking around the handle of the flashlight. She stares straight ahead, holding the beam steady. In the past, she might have acted wounded and defensive if he suggested she had hurt him. Now, it’s as if she only knows what she shouldn’t say, but still has no idea what she should say. 

When they reach the end of the tunnel, she moves the light up and down the steel door in search of the lock. “ _Damnit,_ ” she says, running her gloved fingers over the frozen dials. “ _It’s a combination lock._ ”

He traces the path of her glove with his bare hand, thinking. The metal is so cold it burns. “ _Shine the light into the gap,_ ” he says. “ _So I can find the deadbolt._ ” She does, peering over his shoulder as he crouches to look. 

“ _Do you see it?_ ” she asks. “ _I can bring some of the miners out here to get it open._ ”

He takes a step back, concentrating the light in his fist, and punches the seam of the door as hard as he can. The steel craters, but the lock doesn’t open. His hand is shattered, the knuckles running with blood. 

She gives a delayed yelp. “ _Baby! No, Baby, what are you doing?!_ ”

Clenching his jaw, he fuses the bones in his hand and tries again. The pain is terrible, and exhilarating. If Toki were here, he wouldn’t allow it. But she can’t stop him. 

“ _Don’t do that!_ ” she says, trying to grab his arm and fumbling the flashlight. The beam strobes out, clattering to the floor. He’s no substitute for the flashlight, since he doesn’t provide a whole lot of illumination to the things around him, but he himself stands out in the dark. 

He takes several steps back, and slams full speed into the door with his shoulder, feeling the rotator cuff crunch. Finally, the door eeks open, the broken arm dangling at his side. 

“ _Skwisgaar!_ ” She picks up the flashlight, reigniting it to watch in horror as he pops his shoulder joint back into place. Pausing to catch his breath, he leans his head against the doorframe, and she reaches for him, placing a hand on his chest. “ _You’re gonna give me a fucking heart attack,_ ” she hisses. Her face puckers in anguish at the sight of his mangled hand. “ _Don’t hurt yourself like that!_ ”

After taking a minute to recharge, he closes his eyes and fuses the bones again. Because of their structure, he finds it easier to brute force his bones back into place than the more intricate soft tissues, which he prefers to let heal on their own. 

“ _It’s fine,_ ” he says, shaking it off. The soreness should go away on its own in a couple of hours. 

She presses the scarf over her mouth. As his tolerance for pain and gore has risen, he may have started to lose touch with what mortals find disturbing. 

He holds his hand out in front of her, wiggling his bloodied fingers. “ _See? All good._ ” 

She doesn’t seem convinced. 

  
  
  


The crowd had engulfed him, undulating and converging like a mosh mit as he walked down the center aisle of the auditorium. Hesitantly at first, then with increasing boldness, they began to lay their hands on him, shoving and pressing for a chance to touch their god. Most remembered him from Dethklok, from television, before they had come to know him as a figure of cult veneration and oral legend. Now, he appeared to them in divine flesh and blood. He felt their warm handprints on his back, his arms, his chest, his wings, their love surrounding him in glowing waves. They pleaded with him, and he closed his eyes, smiling as someone touched his face. 

The wreath of Arctic flowers tickled his forehead, their combined breath heating the air around him with a canopy of silver steam. He could feel the coal dust in their lungs, and livers, and between their teeth, and in the roots of their hair, the particulate matter that was slowly poisoning them all. They strained to touch him and be purified, and he poured his light recklessly into the mass of bodies, lost in the feeling. Their hands were respectful, caressing and not grabbing, and he felt his body opening itself to them, his heart relaxed and generous. 

He stepped out into the cold night air, the crowd pouring from the Spitzbergen Science Center and forming a crescent moon around the parking lot. They parted for Serveta, her blue coat flapping in the wind, and she ordered them to return to their houses. They would start making preparations for their voyage in the morning.

That was good, she told him. She’d been worried there might be more resistance to leaving, but he had gotten them all on board with the plan. He released the laughter he’d been holding in, and she asked him what was so funny. Nothing, he told her. On a scale from the Murderface and Knubbler Christmas Special to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, he figured they’d managed to pull a solid seven out of ten.

  
  
  


Beyond the second door, the tunnel splits into three chambers. The vault must be hooked up to the Longyearbyen power grid. The refrigeration coils are humming inside. When they try the switches, fluorescent lights cough to life. Even without power, the natural temperature inside the mountain is low enough to maintain the viability of the seeds for years.

Inside each chamber, they find row after row of steel shelves, stacked with thousands of black boxes. The seeds quiver with potential energy. Skwisgaar walks up and down the rows, skimming his fingertips over the labels, and letting his wings brush across every surface. Maize. Cassava. Lentil. Buckwheat. Taro. Sorghum. Yam. Plantain. The horde burn everything in their path; Billions of hectares of farmland and wilderness left sterile as the surface of the moon. 

He feels a stab of love for her, and this time it hurts. Echoes of death surround this place. Men’s voices, men killing and being killed, the residue of their blood and urine. But she put a stop to the violence; She kept her promise to him. And now, because of her, there’s hope. 

He emerges from the stacks to find her slumped in a chair next to one of the research tables. A digital scale and measuring tray sit at her elbow, right where some poor scientist must have left them. 

“ _What is it?_ ” he asks. He joins her, sitting sideways, so that the back of the chair doesn’t get in the way of his wings. 

She looks feeble under the harsh fluorescent lighting. Her lips are bluish and numb. She slips the goggles off her head, resting them on the table with an exhausted clink.

“ _We should head back,_ ” he says, starting to get up. “ _Send someone to load all these boxes onto the ship. It’s too cold in here._ ”

She just shakes her head, staring angrily at a scuff on the metal surface. Her teeth are chattering. Her pale eyelashes flicker, blinking back fresh tears. 

“ _I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you told me, when we were in Florida,_ ” she says. She bites her lip, the way she does when she wants a cigarette. “ _You said something had happened to you when you were eleven, that you’ve never told me about. I haven’t been able to get that out of my brain. I’ve just been… wracking my memory for what it could have been, and imagining all these horrible things._ ” 

His feet leave the floor and he curls in on himself, hugging his legs. Before he has a chance to register what’s happening, he’s sobbing. “ _I’m sorry,_ ” he says. “ _I can’t- I can’t talk about that now._ ” He hasn’t cried like this in front of her since he was little. Even in Florida, it wasn’t like this. 

He wants to tell her. To put this behind them. But the memory suffocates him, every time he’s forced to relive it. Over the course of many conversations, he let Toki piece it together. But he’s never actually said it out loud, to anyone. He covers his eye sockets with his knees. 

Her hand hovers, debating whether to touch him. “ _Skwisgaar,_ ” she says. He waits for a predicate, but it’s just his name. He unfolds himself, long legs curling under the low seat. 

“ _There were a lot of things you didn’t know about my life,_ ” he says. “ _And I wanna start telling you some of them. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to tell you everything._ ”

She hangs her head, the crown of braids tilting towards him. He puts an arm around her, using his energy to heat her, and she turns her numb face against his warm shoulder. They sit like that for a while, his chin resting on the top of her head, breathing through his nose and listening to the sibilant hum of the dormant seeds. 

“ _I guess you’re probably still wondering what happened to me after I left,_ ” he begins. “ _Why you didn’t hear from me directly for years._ ” 

Her voice is like crumpled paper. “ _Why?_ ” 

They separate, her cheeks glowing with renewed circulation.

“ _In my defense,_ ” he says, “ _I was seventeen, and really fucked in the head about a lot of things._ ” He looks at his lap, massaging the pain in his recently broken hand. “ _But still, I’m sorry I did that to you. At the time, I resented you for looking for me. Sending the police to check on me_. _I saw it as a kind of retaliation. But now, I realize you were just desperate to find me. I have no idea what it’s like to have your kid disappear like that, and not even know if they're alive or dead. I guess I thought… you wouldn’t care that I was gone._ ”

“ _Of_ course _I—_ ” She stops, covering her mouth. A vein in her forehead throbs as she tries to collect herself. “ _I was devastated,_ ” she says, finding her voice again. “ _I never— Maybe it’s hard for you to believe, but I never saw it coming. I thought you were fine. Or rather, I wanted to believe you were fine, in spite of me. I knew my life wasn’t… fit for a child. But you seemed so special. Like a tiny adult._ ” She stands the goggles on their side, studying the cracked lens. “ _You were the best thing in my life,_ ” she sniffs. “ _And I took you for granted. Until I lost you. And even after that, when you finally called me. I should have— But I couldn’t face how much you hated me._ ” 

He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, waiting for her to look at him before speaking again. “ _The reason you didn’t hear from me between 1988 and 1993, was that I became a heroin addict._ ”

She scrunches her eyes and leans her forehead on her fist, elbow propped on the table. Without looking up, she nods to show that she’s listening. 

“ _When I first left home,_ ” he says, “ _I went to Göteborg, which had a huge metal scene. I went to the clubs to meet people, slept on various couches. I stayed with this older woman for a while, a club owner. She was the one who got me hooked on dope._ ” 

He pauses, waiting for a reaction— Bracing for recrimination of some kind, he realizes. He’s ashamed of this part of his life. That’s what you left your own mother for? To shoot up on some sleazy stranger’s couch? But she doesn’t say any of those things. He can feel her listening with desperate interest, as he tries to figure out where this story is going.

“ _I was in dozens of bands during those years,_ ” he says. “ _Some for like, two weeks. I never had any friends; Just acquaintances and fuckbuddies. Whenever I got bored of a place, or the people I was with, I’d just get on a train or a plane and leave. And everywhere I went, people gave me money, and sex, and drugs. Even when I looked like shit, like a skeleton with hair, there was always somebody who wanted to fuck me. Somebody who wanted me to play the guitar. It was easy. I could have lived like that forever, except that I knew it was killing me._ ” He scratches at the crust of blood on his knuckles, peeling it away to reveal the new skin underneath. 

“ _I didn’t care that much about dying though,_ ” he confesses. “ _The only reason I started to think about quitting was because I was afraid it was affecting my guitar playing. And even that might not have been enough of a reason, on its own._ ”

He wishes she would say something. Interrupt him, before he vomits his whole stupid life into her lap. The really glamorous parts all came later, and she already knows most of that.

When he joined Dethklok, he had already been in the process of trying to quit. The gross flophouse they all lived in together, perhaps unexpectedly, turned out to be a pretty good environment in which to detox. One of Pickles’s old band mates had almost died from a heroin overdose; It was known to be one of the main reasons Snakes N’ Barrels had fallen apart. And so he and Nathan had made it clear to Skwisgaar, in no uncertain terms, that he would have to quit if he wanted to be in their band. And he acted cool, like it didn’t matter to him. But _holy shit_ , did he wanna be in their band.

From the moment he’d first heard Dethklok’s music, he’d just had to have it for himself— To make it his own. That sound had fired something in him. And then, this shitty band with no money and no apparent prospects had had the balls to put conditions on his membership, which had only made him want it more. Nathan wouldn’t let him get away with just showing up, and shredding, and then disappearing into his bedroom the rest of the time. He’d been expected to hang out with the other guys, and Nathan would tell him if his playing sounded off, or ‘like a fucken smack head.’ He’d already been pretty attached to his guitar, but between Nathan’s perfectionism and Magnus’s belligerent competition, he’d started practicing every available second— First to distract himself from wanting to shoot up, and then because, as the worst of the withdrawal began to fade, he remembered that the playing itself had once been more pleasurable than any high. 

Before Dethklok, he’d gotten used to people throwing themselves at him, and letting him do whatever he wanted. But what he’d needed was for someone to tell him ‘no,’ and to push him to be better. For someone to even pretend to give half a shit about him as a person, and not just as a machine to put drugs and money into, to make sex and talent fall out. 

“ _When you first called me from California,_ ” she says, relieving the silence, “ _it was like you’d come back from the dead._ ” 

“ _That was…_ ” He smiles. “ _I remember. I was in the ER with Nathan after Magnus stabbed him. He was fine, basically, but… I remember sitting there in the waiting room, staring at this payphone. Realizing that Magnus was gonna be out. That I could be lead if I wanted. Trying to decide if I was gonna stay with this band. Realizing that this was, like. A new chapter in my life. And something about it all just… made me wanna call you._ ”

Their footfalls seem to echo louder on the way out than they did on the way in. She shakes the flashlight, batteries rattling inside, and he falls into step beside her. The tunnel drips, pipes groaning above their heads, like they’re in the belly of a whale. 

He imagines the war that took place here. Did the scientists die defending the seeds? The vault contains millions of samples from every major food crop on Earth, a failsafe designed to restart agriculture from zero. Almost every country in the world had contributed to it, before those countries ceased to exist. Did they die on their feet, defending the patrimony of humanity, an embodiment of the best of human ingenuity and cooperation? Or did they die pointlessly and horribly, fighting over the last can of beans, the last pack of cigarettes on a doomed planet. 

The ancients were preoccupied with the idea of a noble death; But their gods lacked all nobility, for without death to give their lives narrative structure and meaning, they became eternal, spoiled children. 

When they reach the exit, she pauses, facing him in the shaft of fluorescent blue darkness that shines from the mouth of the tunnel. “ _If I could just—_ ” she struggles. “ _All I want to do, with whatever time I have left, is to give some of it back to you. If I can._ ” 

His heart quickens, something he hadn’t quite acknowledged to himself until now breaching the surface. “ _Actually, I—_ _I kind of… gave you extra time. You and Týr._ ”

“ _Sweetie…_ ” Her lips part. “ _What do you mean?_ ”

He takes her hand, getting ready to preempt any negative reaction. “ _It wasn’t on purpose,_ ” he says quickly. “ _It just sort of happened. I healed your- Your telomeres, or something. Whatever it is that causes aging._ ” 

The hand he’s not holding flies to her chest. “ _Oh, Sweetie,_ ” she says, groping for composure. “ _How much-? How much time?_ ” 

“ _I don’t know. A little more than most humans, I think. But I don’t know exactly._ ”

" _Good._ " She nods her head forcefully. “ _I don’t wanna know._ ” 

“ _I’m- I’m sorry,_ ” he stammers. “ _I just. I’m not ready to give you up, soon. I want us to have a chance to be a real family. Is that-? Is that fucked up? Are you mad?_ ” 

“ _No, no._ ” She swallows. There’s shock, first. Shock, and then a little fear. “ _It’s just not something you plan for, at my age,_ ” she laughs nervously. “ _Having extra time to fill, I mean._ ”

He hugs her, rubbing the links of her braid against his cheek. “ _Is this okay?_ ” he asks. “ _Do you think Týr will be okay with it?_ ” 

She strokes the back of his neck through his high collar. He can feel her thinking. Trying to assimilate this revelation. “ _I’ll talk to him,_ ” she says. “ _Don’t- Don’t worry, about us._ ” It’s her job to communicate his will to other mortals, after all. “ _I just wanna make you happy,_ ” she says. “ _To make things up to you, if I can. Of course, I’m happy to spend more time with you, Baby._ ”

His heart glows. She’s dissembling, a little, but he doesn’t mind. She wouldn’t be his mother if she didn’t.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They use up the last of the deer meat, throwing whatever’s left in the pantry into a cast iron pot suspended over the fire. Skwisgaar happily eats two bowlfuls of the resulting stew, including the soggy coins of canned carrot he would once have picked out. When Serveta leaves them to go oversee preparations, he and Toki help Týr clean and pack, listing each of their belongings on an inventory slip so they can be recovered from the cargo hold once they reach Cuba. They play a final, ceremonial round of Scrabble before packing the board away in one of the crates they’ve been given. Afterwards, there’s not much left to do except wait for her to come back.

“ _You’ve been quiet,_ ” Skwisgaar says into Toki’s hair. 

His playful tone doesn’t win him the response he’s looking for. Toki just shrugs, staring into the fire. Týr has started snoring, slung over a chair in the corner.

“ _Aren’t you excited to see Pickles and Murderface again?_ ” Skwisgaar prods. 

Toki’s vertebrae stand out through his thin undershirt, chin resting on his knees. “ _Of course I am,_ ” he says.

The criss-crossing scars on his shoulders are partially uncovered. Skwisgaar used to find them hard to look at. A few lick the backs of his upper arms, making it easy to visualize the angle of the lash. They used to be raised and knotted, itchy in some places and numb in others, tugging painfully when Toki moved his arms in certain ways. Skwisgaar knows this, because when he was first teaching Toki how to windmill his hair, they’d had to work around them. As unequipped as he was to offer comfort back then, he’d pretended not to notice as Toki pretended not to tear up over it. 

Now, the skin is smooth, the patterns left behind by the scars almost beautiful to look at. Skwisgaar doesn’t know why Toki kept these traces— whether it was some subconscious choice on his part. He would like to believe that they symbolize Toki’s resilience, but he knows what’s more likely; That for Toki, they symbolize what he regards as his eternal punishment. 

“ _You don’t seem very excited._ ” He traces a lightning bolt shaped mark on Toki’s shoulder. 

Toki flinches. “ _Do I have to be all ‘Wowee, I’m so happy’ all the time? Can’t I just be quiet?_ ”

Skwisgaar withdraws, grabbing his guitar instead. His hands have to be doing something. You seemed happy when we were lost, he thinks privately. He hunches over his tinkling scales, trying to quash the sting of annoyance. You seemed happy when I was helpless, and scared, and dependent on you. And now that I’m back on track, you seem miserable. 

Toki lies down on the floor mat, facing away from him. “ _Play Thunderhorse,_ ” he says softly. 

Skwisgaar plays, watching the line of his body rise and fall. 

“ _Gonna need… sunblock._ ” Týr mumbles. “ _I don’t suppose you boys burn… but I do._ ”

  
  
  


The next day, they wait in front of a grand fireplace in the lobby of the main administrative building, watching the settlers pack up and carry away whatever they can fit on the ship. Skwisgaar and Toki sit together on the granite hearthstone, while Nathan hunches over on an empty crate a little bit farther from the heat and dry air. It feels awkward, like maybe they should be helping, but no one’s given them any instructions. Silence alternates with Nathan’s stilted attempts to make conversation. Skwisgaar can’t decide which is worse.

“Sooo… Cuba, huh?” Nathan scrubs the back of his neck. His slippery skin doesn’t seem to like being near the fire. “That’s kinda cool, I mean. It’s one of the only places on Earth we never toured. ‘Cause of the.” He frowns. “The embr- embrolo? Embryo? Imbroglio…?” He gives up. “‘Cause communism.” 

Toki stares at a stain on the synthetic wall-to-wall carpet.

“Anything you, uh. Wanna do when we get there? Toki?”

He unfolds and refolds his wings, watching the palm frond shadows they cast on the floor, and looks up at the sound of his name.

“Do you—?” Nathan asks, looking to Skwisgaar. “Can he—?” He turns back to Toki. “Can you like, understand what I’m saying?”

The shadow forms a bristling ‘V.’ There are shattering sounds and loud voices. Someone dropped something in the hallway behind them. 

“Toki.” Skwisgaar gives his shoulder a nudge. “You gotsta tries to prackstice your Anglish, okej?”

“ _Why?_ ” Toki glares out the window at the men carrying boxes down to the dock. “ _If what’s left of humanity is mostly Norwegians and Russians, then maybe_ he _should learn_ norsk.”

Skwisgaar rubs his chin. “Das eughhh… goods point.”

Toki stuffs his hands deep in his pants pockets, fidgeting angrily. “I’s understands enoughs, okei?” he says to Nathan. “Stops talkinks… like I’s deh dumbs… At me.”

Nathan double-blinks, uncomfortable. “Hey, uh. Come on, man. That’s not—” He rocks forward, perched on the edge of the crate. The song of his mind is arrhythmic and stuttering. “I’m just tryin’ to catch up with my pals here. It’s been a long. Ya know. Time. And stuff.”

There are no large rooms on Svalbard, except for the small auditorium, because of how expensive they are to heat. But the tension makes the lobby feel cavernous.

“When us ams gets in Cuba,” says Toki, “I wants å drinks tils dat I pukes my unsides to deh outs.”

Unlikely, Skwisgaar thinks. His own body metabolizes alcohol so quickly that he has to drink copious amounts in order to maintain a buzz, and it can’t be much different for Toki. But all Toki means is that he wishes he could drink until he could forget, the way he did when he was human. Even that dubious escape is denied to him now.

“Oh, yeah,” says Nathan, mistaking this for an expression of camaraderie. “Me too. Let’s get hammered!”

Fists vibrating while still balled in his pockets, Toki gets up and storms out of the room. It feels like he’s taken all the air with him. Nathan’s voice creaks— “Wha’d I say?” —behind them as Skwisgaar charges after him, not even pausing to answer.

The fire exit door flings open onto a snow-covered lot behind the building. The dark shape of the ocean liner fills the horizon at the bottom of the slope, people massing on the dock in its curved shadow. Toki’s back is to the exit, his long hair floating in the wind as he watches them from above.

“ _He doesn’t trust me,_ ” he says, without turning around. “ _I can feel it. He already thinks I’m a monster, before I’ve even done anything._ ”

Skwisgaar sighs. “ _That’s not it,_ ” he says. “ _The reason he’s feeling awkward around you is… Not because of you. It’s because of me_.”

It’s cold out. The coldest day since they’ve been here. He cups his elbows, steeling himself against the wind chill. The tips of his ears have gone numb.

“ _Nathan kissed me,_ ” he says.

Pain pierces the air like the violin sting in a horror movie. Toki’s wings flex, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even seem surprised.

“ _It wasn’t his fault,_ ” Skwisgaar adds quickly. “ _It was me._ ” He rakes a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself for putting this off. “ _My powers were… influencing him, somehow. I didn’t even realize I was doing it._ ”

The violin saws, growing frantic. “ _Why are you telling me this?_ ”

He takes a step closer to the edge of the lot. “ _Toki,_ ” he says, “ _I’m so sorry. I should have told you before. It just didn’t seem like the right time._ ”

“ _No._ ” Toki turns around. His hands are still jammed in his pockets, like he’s struggling to contain them. “ _I mean, why are you telling me this at all?_ ”

“ _Because… you have a right to know? I fucked up, and I’m sorry. But I won’t go behind your back like that again._ ”

“ _You can do whatever you want._ ” He sneers. “ _Go ahead, kiss Nathan. Kiss anybody. There’s nothing I can do about it, so why even tell me?_ ”

Skwisgaar closes his eyes, trying to reset. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. The follicles in his skin prickle, making both hairs and feathers stand on end. His body is telling him that something is seriously wrong. “ _What are you talking about?_ ” he asks.

“ _I’m the one who’s trapped,_ ” says Toki. “ _I’m the one who has no other options._ ” His hands leave his pockets to twitch at his sides. “ _If I ever want to feel anything good ever again, I have to be willing to put up with anything from you. You can treat me like shit, and I’ll still be here, begging for you to touch me. Because it’s all I have. It’s all I’ll ever have._ ”

Skwisgaar’s first, frantic reflex is to grab Toki and hug him close. But he curls his nails into his palms, disciplining his body. He refuses to reward this tendency to grandiose self-pity.

“ _Whatever happened to not wanting to be my shadow?_ ” he asks coolly.

“ _I was full of shit, okay?_ ” Toki raises his voice. “ _The best I can hope for is to be your fucking shadow._ ”

The deep, brassy horn of the ocean liner vibrates the powdery surface of the snow. There are whoops and cheers down by the edge of the water. No one seems to notice them up here.

“ _You wanna know where I went when I left here?_ ” he asks. He pauses, waiting for Skwisgaar to reply, but Skwisgaar just stares at him, unwilling to take what could be bait.

“ _I flew down to Norway, to see what had happened to my village,_ ” says Toki. “ _To see if— I don’t know. If my grandmother, who I grew up calling my mother, was there. To see if any of the people I knew when I was a kid were there. Well guess what? There’s nothing there. It’s a pile of ashes._ ”

Skwisgaar softens, feeling the pull to hug again. “ _Toki, I’m sorry—_ ” he tries to say.

“ _I have nothing,_ ” Toki snaps at him. “ _No family. No life, outside of you. I’m locked in the root cellar, alone in the darkness, forever. And all I can do is beg you to crack the door a little bit, to give me a stripe of sunlight._ ”

“ _Stop it,_ ” Skwisgaar says. “ _Stop catastrophizing._ ”

“ _Oh, is that what I’m doing?_ ”

He lightens his voice, trying not to sound too annoyed. “ _You’re choosing to frame your situation in the worst way possible,_ ” he says. “ _It doesn’t have to be like that. There are good things about it, too. And for all we know, things can still get better._ ”

Toki’s nostrils flare, his breaths coming out in puffs of white steam. “ _Things_ were _better,_ ” he says. “ _They’ve gotten worse._ ” He pulls back the sleeve of his ski fleece, shoving his injury in Skwisgaar’s face. This is the best look Skwisgaar has gotten of it. Through the gap between the bones, less than a centimeter wide, he can peer all the way through the arm.

The promise to fix it dies on Skiwsgaar’s tongue. The truth is, he doesn’t know how. Toki doesn’t believe it. And for the first time, he’s not sure he believes it either.

“ _I had it,_ ” says Toki. He makes a convulsive expression, halfway between about to cry and about to throw up, and covers his face with his hands. “ _I had_ the gift. _The only thing I’ve ever wanted. The one thing that made everything else worth it. And then just like that, it was taken away._ ”

Skwisgaar swallows. The urge to physically comfort Toki competes with the knowledge that he’ll be shoved off if he tries. 

“ _You let me do this to myself!_ ” Toki yells. “ _For you! To protect you! You just stood there and watched me ruin my life!_ ” He clenches his fret hand, the blue wound throbbing with distortion. His voice drops to a low hiss. “ _This is exactly what you wanted, isn’t it?_ ” 

Skwisgaar’s calm shatters. “ _What the fuck are you talking about?_ ” he yells back. “ _Why would I want this?_ ”

“ _You just have to have everything, don’t you?!_ ” Toki rants. His wings bristle with aggression, chest heaving, like he’s preparing to strike. The purling darkness warps the atmosphere around him as he grows increasingly hysterical. “ _You couldn’t even let me have this one thing! You couldn’t stand to let me be your equal in anything. Well, I hope you’re happy, because now I’ll never catch up to you again!_ ” 

Nathan staggers into the yard, sweaty and shirtless, having abandoned his bathrobe inside. “What’s going on out here?” he asks. He’s heard them yelling, and decided it’s time to intervene. But Skwisgaar instantly senses his presence is only going to make things worse.

The sight of Nathan sends Toki to his knees. He clutches his head, sobbing bitterly, his wings making angels in the snow.

“Guys?” Nathan prompts, again. But no one answers him.

Skwisgaar is riveted in place. He can feel Toki unraveling right in front of him, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. Words? Actions? Anything? His stomach plunges.

“ _He’s better for you,_ ” says Toki, his voice collapsing in on itself. The ground trembles with his dark will. “ _He has nice, normal parents, who love him,_ ” he spits, despair recycling itself back into anger again. “ _He admires you, in a nice, normal way. He doesn’t wanna skin you and wear you as a suit._ ” 

“What’s he saying?” Nathan stops a meter from Skwisgaar’s elbow, wary but unbearably curious. “Toki, what’s wrong?”

Skwisgaar reaches for him, feeling helpless.

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ” Toki screams.

The sheet of ice beneath the powder splinters. Skwisgaar’s wings balance him as he and Nathan are thrown back. His jaw clenches, vibrations jangling the bones of his inner ear in a wall of nausea. It’s as if the space itself is shaking. Nathan skids across the ice on his back, the breath knocked out of him. His gills suck the air.

Toki is crouched, squeezing his skull with both hands, his wings pointed flat as blades. “ _Get out!_ ” he says, between clenched teeth. Pitching forward onto his hands and knees, he cracks his forehead against the ice. “ _Getoutgetoutgetout!_ ” He convulses, dark blood running down his face as he slams his head into the ground again and again. It looks deoxygenated and brownish, the color of barbecue sauce. Not brilliant red like Skwisgaar’s— But it’s still blood.

“ _Stop it!_ ” says Skwisgaar, finding his voice again. He moves to grab Toki, but he’s halted by the violet dagger, hovering centimeters from his face. 

“What the fuck is that?” asks Nathan, climbing to his feet. The dagger shimmers almost audibly, its crystal prism dazzling the snow with tilting rainbows.

Pale eyes open wide, the blade a pink reflection in Toki’s limitless blue pupils. Blood covers his face in vertical streaks, an ugly pit in the center of his forehead. The soft, boyish features are unrecognizable. He isn’t there.

Even fear of the dagger isn’t enough to keep Skwisgaar from taking a step back in shock. This isn’t Toki. This _isn’t_ Toki.

What if I cut out his voice? The pick hand flicks, gesturing over his shoulder at Nathan. Would you mourn it as much as the arm? But of course, it doesn’t matter. Dethklok is finished, either way. 

Teeth showing, Not-Toki lunges at Nathan, the dagger sparkling high above his head. Skwisgaar throws himself, knocking him out of the air, and they grapple on the ground, both his hands dedicated to pinning the hand with the dagger, while the other one claws at his neck. The pale eyes stare up at him with single-minded hatred, Toki’s face a still mask of cold rage. Skwisgaar flinches, unable to withstand the sight of it, and he’s dislodged with a swift kick to the stomach.

Nathan moves fast to bear hug Not-Toki from behind, the dagger skipping across the ice, and for a second it seems like they’ve got him. But the darkness rises up from the earth, lifting their hair and clothes, the pressure of the droning vacuum shattering their eardrums. It sucks at Nathan’s lifeforce until his arms release, gravity returning as Not-Toki shrugs him off and spreads his wings. They would disappear completely against the color of the sky, if not for their lack of stars. 

Skwisgaar crawls to where Nathan is heaped on the ground, pressing the light into chest and groping for a pulse. The cool flesh startles his hands, until he remembers it’s normal. Nathan is weakened, but not dead.

“Go!” He sits up, coughing. “Don’t worry about me, worry about Toki!”

Skwisgaar rockets after him, lightning crackling over his body as he reaches top speed. The cold sears his exposed hands and face as they climb thousands of meters above the ground, the bright gingerbread houses of Longyearbyen disappearing into the mists below. On the other side of the mountains, Not-Toki dives and Skwisgaar follows, corkscrewing through the air to tackle him seconds before he lands.

Away from the light pollution of the settlement, the black sky throbs with brilliant pink and green ribbons of aurora borealis. The valley is insulated from the winds coming off the water, a smooth, silent expanse of white.

He slams Not-Toki into the deep, untrodden snow. They wrestle, kicking up the powder, their powerful muscles twisting and flowing in what could almost be an embrace. Rib cages straining against each other, warm breath bathing each other’s faces, they fight for control of the knife.

“Lets him go,” he growls, in Not-Toki’s ear. “Lets him go!”

The fret hand grabs him by the throat, an iron thumb pinching his trachea, and he’s flipped onto his back, a hard knee jabbing him in the gut. The blade glints above him, the magenta tip blinding him with a parhelion rainbow, and he reaches to stop it, grabbing the raised pick arm with both hands. Instantly, he realizes his mistake. Attacking Nathan was a distraction. The weapon’s intended target has always been his heart. 

“Toki—” he gasps. Even with a weakened fret hand, Not-Toki has all the leverage in this position. Skwisgaar’s wrists tremble, trying to keep the blade away from him with all his strength. His right arm and shoulder are still raw from punching his way through the vault door. He is aware of individual fibrils of fresh muscle screaming beneath Toki’s weight. “Toki, nej—” He kicks and struggles but it’s no use. He can only mouth Toki’s name as his vision begins to fuzz over.

I love you, he thinks. His throat resonates with eerie birdsong beneath the crushing hand. His own wordless, angelic voice echoes inside his skull, pleading for Toki to hear him.

You torment him, the voice booms, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. The love you offer is a cruel lie. The pick hand descends, slowly overcoming his resistance. _You_ are the source of all suffering in this world.

I love you, he thinks louder.

The pale eyes flicker with recognition, lashes sticking with brown blood. His elbows buckle. The tip of the dagger is ice cold as it sinks into his breast.

Toki screams. The blade reels back, singing through the air in a rainbow arc.

Skwisgaar gasps as the hand around his throat releases, the severed arm rolling away into the snow. The freezing air makes his teeth ache. At first he doesn’t understand what happened. Detached from Toki’s body, the arm bursts into ghostly blue static, flickering briefly before winking out of existence. Skwisgaar climbs to his knees. The aurora floods his field of vision, symphonic swells drowning out his thoughts as his brain readjusts to oxygen. When his head clears, he finds the ground in front of him splattered with vomit. He swallows, tasting nothing. It’s not his own.

I want out, Toki thinks. The stump of his arm ends just above the elbow. The crystal blade cauterized instantly, leaving a cross section of muscle, bone, and blood vessels as smooth as glass. His features are frozen in shock, black vomit dripping from the corner of his open mouth. I want out. Iwantout. IwantoutIwantoutIwantout—

“Toki, no!” Skwisgaar tackles him, prying the dagger from his fingers before he can plunge it into own his chest.

Please. Toki wails, collapsing beneath him. Please, I give up. I can’t do it. Let me out.

“ _It won’t let you out!_ ” Skwisgaar yells in his ear. “ _It’ll just hurt you more!_ ”

The music stops. Toki goes limp beneath him. The struggle is over.

Skwisgaar props himself on his elbows, catching his breath. Pain flares in the left side of his chest. The dagger left a shallow cut, just a few centimes long, above his heart. The wound burns like liquid nitrogen. “ _Toki?_ ” he pants.

Moonstone eyes gaze sightlessly past him into the blaze of the aurora. Toki is a perfect statue, no heartbeat, no breath. He presses his ear against Toki’s sternum, but there’s no vibration. At least, when he would have catatonic episodes as a human, there would be a heartbeat. The breathless body lolls against him, lips parted, eyes wide. Glassy, and smooth, and dead, like the incorruptible corpse of a saint. 

“ _Nonononono, please please, no._ ” He rocks. It’s been a while since his body truly felt like a prison. Suddenly, it’s suffocating. “ _Please no. Please come back to me. Come back to me. Please come back to me. I can’t be alone. Toki? Please, please, I can’t- I can’t be alone. I need someone to talk to. I need someone to keep me company. Please, I can’t, I can’t do it, please come back, please. Toki, no. Nonononono, please, no—_ ”

Rage grips him, and he gives the body a violent shake, the head dangling by a boneless neck. “ _No,_ ” he says. “ _You can’t do that._ ” His fists flash, like the muzzle of a gun. “ _Fuck you, Toki! You can’t fucking ignore me!_ ” He grips the head with both hands, screaming into the vacant face until the copper beard is flecked with his spit. “ _I created you! You’re mine! You hear me?! I fucking created you!_ ” he seethes. 

Then, as quickly as it came, his rage evaporates. He lays his head on Toki’s silent chest, posing the empty body like a doll to wrap the one remaining arm around himself. The flat of his cheek drags in slow circles. When he tries to speak again, all that comes out is a kind of birdlike wail. 


	7. Chapter 7

It’s Christmas morning at Mordhaus, and the halls are decked with holly and poinsettia, the forty foot tree ringed with a vast foothills of presents. A dozen grand fireplaces crackle, distant organ music floating up towards the vaulted ceilings. Even the gargoyles are wearing antlers and sweaters. Excited voices fill the corridors as their guests are ushered in from the cold, the smells of roasting mutton, and pork, and venison, and duck a l’orange issuing from Jean-Pierre’s kitchen. Coats are taken and drinks are poured, as the banquet tables are freighted with roasted meats, gravies, relishes, cheeses, cassoulets, pâtés, pastries, and pies.

He floats down the stairs on his wings, feet skimming over every fourth step, his heart light as a cloud. 

Nathan catches him at the bottom, an elbow hooked around his waist and a cool kiss at his temple. 

You’re not even wearing your sweater, he says.

Nathan makes a face. Do I have to?

You don’t have to, he says, but he pouts until Nathan does. 

It seems like everyone they’ve ever known is there. Groupies, industry suits, ex-bandmates; Everyone. Pickles’s dad talks firearm specs with Murderface’s grandpa, who doesn’t need to be pulled around in a wagon anymore. Magnus argues furtively with Knubbler about mastering in Pro Tools. Abigail tells a story that makes eggnog shoot from Roy Cornickelson’s nose. Murderface holds court by the fire, pitching his latest side project to a group of wrapt listeners. 

All of Nathan’s ex-girlfriends are there, even the ones no one liked; Even Rebecca, no longer in a coma. And Snakes N’ Barrels, free from the effects of long term drug use, and Dr. Rockzo, and the rest of Zazz Blammymatazz, and Viktor from Fuckface Academy, and all the other hopeless junkies he’s ever felt kind of sorry for (when he wasn’t too busy feeling superior to them for actually having the strength to quit). And Mashed Potato Johnson, with an acoustic guitar on his knee, and Melmord Fjordslorn, and Dr. Twinkletits, and all of Dr. Twinkletits’s dead bandmates, who he once murdered with a ballpoint pen. His mother and stepfather stand near the tree, dutifully wearing their sweaters, and Nathan’s parents go to join them with four drinks in hand. Everyone is their happiest, healthiest self. Even poor Jean-Pierre, who’s been put back together correctly this time.

They all come up to thank him, and hug him, and give him gifts (even though he said no gifts), and he glows under the attention, the party ebbing and flowing around him. He gets gloriously tipsy, letting guest after guest refill his glass, people brushing deliciously against his feathers as he navigates the packed hall, peering over the sea of scalps. 

At some point, someone asks him to play. Oh no, I couldn’t, he protests, as the guitar is pressed into his hands. Well, maybe a little, he smiles. I wrote this song for you, he says to Nathan, and they kiss in front of everyone, to cooing and applause. 

Afterwards, he’s in the kitchen hunting for his champagne flute, and Pickles corners him against the sink. There’s laughter in the other room. Someone has proposed a drunken toast. 

You can’t do this, Pickles says. His third eye blazes, nails digging into his palms. You can’t keep everyone here forever. You can’t treat people like toys. 

Don’t say that. Panic leaps in his throat, the crystal flute shattering on the floor. His wings bristle. Crackling fingers skim the side of Pickle’s face. I make everyone happy.

Pickles trembles. His powers of insight have made him the most difficult one to subdue. He can see the emptiness inside, the terrible hunger. He knows too much.

They’re afraid of you, Pickles says. Even if they don’t realize it, because you don’t let them realize it. They’re all afraid of you.

He shakes his head in denial. Because of the height difference between them, he has to bend at the waist to pull Pickles into a hug. Shhhh, he says, petting. Love me. The glowing frequency rumbles his sternum. Don’t worry. Just love me.

Pickles scrunches his eyes against it. You can’t keep this up, he says. You have to let everyone go. But his resistance is already wavering. The power of the eye troubles him; He’s spent his life seeking oblivion, relief from unwanted knowledge. Real life is brutal; It’s too hard to resist the dream.

Four arms curl around him, and he hums in satisfaction, knowing he’ll get what he wants, as usual. His touch is pure pleasure, his voice mellifluous and mesmerizing. No one can refuse him. His dreaming mind shows him what he looks like from the outside, clothed in golden splendor, this terrifying eternal child, surrounded by all his playthings. 

I gave you your family back, he says. And I made them nice for you. I made them love you. Doesn’t that make you happy? 

Pickles nods, squeezing out tears. The confession is wrung from him: Yes.

Then why fight it? 

Voices from the other room are clamoring for them. 

It’s not even really Christmas, Pickles mutters.

He smiles his irresistible smile, swiping a tear from his friend’s pink face with an elegant golden thumb. It’s Christmas whenever I say it is.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Skwisgaar sprawls on a chaise on the deck of the ship, watching the sunrise over the green horizon. He feels wrung out like a rag. Dehydrated from crying. The sun burns his retinas and he stares unblinking into its looming face until he’s struck blind, knowing his eyes will heal as soon as he looks away.

When he got tired of screaming, he lay motionless in the snow, and when he got tired of that, he carried Toki’s unresponsive body aboard the ship. He scraped the dried blood from Toki’s face with his sleeve and climbed into a passenger bunk with the body, clinging to it until about the fourth or fifth day of their voyage, when Serveta knocked on the door to ask him if he would come out and eat. Finally, he stuffed them into the tiny shower stall and laundered their dirty clothes in the valve operated sink, maneuvering the heavy, sprawling, six-limbed body around the cramped space, grooming and dressing it. At first, he held it and watched it constantly, afraid of missing the slightest twitch of an eyelash, waiting and probing for any hint of consciousness. But by around day fifteen he had abandoned his vigil, flying restless circles above the ship in the middle of the night, as the hope that Toki might spring to life in his arms at any moment decayed into resentment and despair. And when he got tired of flying, he lay on the deck under the stars, as everyone else slept below.

He cranes his head back, red pain searing his ocular nerves as his vision is cruelly restored. Two long hollow needles inserted into his frontal lobe, stomach churning agony followed by the tingling relief of the healing process. Chartreuse dawn creeps over him as the ocean liner rounds the curvature of the Earth, the emerald stars of the north Atlantic fading into a pale yellow sky. Heaven yawns before him, simulating the sensation of falling. 

What if this is forever? he thinks. Just you and the stars. But then he remembers that even the stars die, that in fact, some of them are already dead. Hatred convulves him. For a split second, he hopes Toki is in there suffering worse than he is. But the fit passes, leaving him empty again.

The cut on his chest doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s left a vertical scar above his nipple, like a pink exclamation point. The only mark on his otherwise flawless skin. The dagger whistles in his pocket, offering to make more marks that won’t heal. Someone— Pickles? —once warned him about his escalating self harm habit, but he didn’t listen then. Now, he struggles with the temptation to do something he can’t take back. 

A dripping Nathan climbs the utility ladder to the upper deck, his dark figure backlit by the platinum sun. He twists the water from his hair and takes a seat with a ‘hey’ that’s more of a grimace, unaware of his nakedness until he glances down and pulls a towel over his lap. He doesn’t ask How are you?, for which Skwisgaar is grateful. Or worse: How’s Toki? 

“We’re like halfway there,” he says. Wet hair sticks to his chest in intricate loops. His shimmering forearms dangle between his thighs, fingernails glinting like drops of volcanic glass. “I kinda thought we’d have time to start writing, ya know. On the trip. But I guess we’ll, um. Figure it out once we’ve got everybody together.” 

Skwisgaar watches him, saying nothing. He’s barely thought about the album, or about what the loss of Toki’s arm will mean for the world. He’s too preoccupied with what it means for himself. With the guarantee of Toki’s affection in mind, he could afford to be magnanimous. But now that his primary supply has been cut off, he doesn’t have the wherewithal to worry about other people’s needs. His brain feels starved of oxygen. He slouches to the end of the chaise, sulking. Itchy fingers rub the scar through his clothes. The ocean breeze lifts his hair, and sets it back down on his shoulders again. 

You’re not well. You thought you were some kind of Zen master, because you half understood one philosophy book fifteen years ago; But stumbling across the _Meditations_ at a garage sale didn’t get you off heroin. Fame did. You replaced one addiction with another. When was the last time you went even forty-eight hours without being adored?

Nathan’s clawed feet click against the deck and Skwisgaar flinches. 

“How boned are we?” he gruffs. “Can you fix him?” 

It’s quiet up here. Waves clash cymbals against the sides of the ship. It takes Skwisgaar a minute to answer. “Don’ts know.” The nordic snowflake pattern on his fleece is suddenly fascinating. 

“Hnn. Well, that doesn’t sound good.” 

“Nej.”

“Do you have any ideas. About. What we should do?”

“Nej.” 

“Lemme see the knife.”

He looks up with a jolt at Nathan’s outstretched hand, half expecting to find that Nathan isn’t Nathan, but the surreal moment passes. Fear curdles into decadent misery. If it _were_ Him again, Skwisgaar thinks, he might just surrender his heart willingly. 

The dagger is rolled in a scrap of blue plastic tarp he found lying around on the ship. The better to handle it without accidentally nicking his fingers, or more to the point, to blunt the temptation to nick something on purpose. Holding onto it feels dangerous; But disposing of it also feels dangerous, for reasons he can’t quite articulate. 

“Porhaps I shoulds be, eugh. Aksing you to hangs onto dat for me,” he mutters.

The crinkling tarp unravels, the shaft of crystal singing into the open. Nathan raises an eyebrow, taking Skwisgaar’s meaning, and tests the hilt in his palm. The weapon is forged from a single, solid piece of glass, about forty centimeters in length, but surprisingly light. He studies the blade for what feels like a long time, but is probably only a minute. 

“I saw this before,” he says. “In a vision.” 

Skwisgaar leans forward, interested in something for the first time in weeks. “What dids you sees?”

Nathan rolls his eyes back, assembling his explanation. “So, usually it’s like, the closer something is to us in time, the fewer possibilities there are,” he says. “At first, I was seeing a zillion futures, but then things got narrower and narrower until I was seeing basically two: In one, we all meet up again in Cuba, and everything pretty much works out. In the other one, ya know. Toki totally loses it and annihilates everybody. And once you and him are the only ones left—” Nathan wags the dagger. “He tries to destroy you with this.” 

Skwisgaar watches the pink horizon of the cutting edge tilt in and out of existence as Nathan moves his wrist. The center mass of the crystal is deep purple, lightening towards the sides, where the crystal is thinner. The edge is bright pink only when viewed straight on. 

“Den— What’s happen?” he asks.

“That’s what I’m saying.” Nathan frowns. “Neither of those things happened. Instead, the least likely thing happened: Toki attacked _us_ , but somehow ended up cutting _his own_ arm off. Now, everything’s scrambled again.” He wraps the blade in the tarp and sets it aside, making a point to put it beyond Skwisgaar’s reach. 

“Scrambles?”

“As in, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, because I’m back to seeing so many possibilities it makes my head hurt.”

Skwisgaar’s hand flies to Nathan’s forehead, like he’s checking for fever. “Don’t horts,” he orders. 

“I didn’t mean like. That.” Nathan stills. 

Suddenly, their faces are close. Nathan’s nautilus heartbeat reverberates along his arm. The towel in his lap is soaked through, leaving little to the imagination. 

“Well, what’s you wanna do?”

“I don’t know. Get to Cuba and see what happens?” Confusion pinches his brows, but he doesn’t retreat. “I guess until then… we wait. And if you’re up to it, maybe do some writing.” 

Defaulting to seduction is effortless. “You wants me,” says Skwisgaar. “I’s not just imagicksings it.” Jonesing for attention, his other faculties exhausted, he skims his fingers down the side of Nathan’s face in mindless search of pain relief. 

“I mean—” Nathan blinks. His lips are wet. “Fuck. Yeah, probably.” 

It’s impossible to decipher the leap of desire in his jugular from what might be the result of undue influence. The light is seamless, pervading everything that breathes. He opens and closes his mouth like a fish. Desire is desire. What would it even mean for it to be inauthentic? Either one feels it, or one doesn’t. 

“ _I could have you,_ ” says Skwisgaar. “ _You could be mine._ ”

Nathan shivers. “I don’t speak Swedish. What does that mean?” 

It would be so easy. So painless. Who could stop him? Skwisgaar slides their thighs together, drinking Nathan’s gaze. Another future flashes before his mind’s eye. But he doesn’t have visions, only fantasies and nightmares. And memories.

Don’t be so coy. You already know exactly what it is you want. Just admit it: You need your fix. You’re not well. 

Fortunately for you, you never have to be alone, if you don’t want to be. You can keep him: Alive, healthy, interested. Theoretically forever. You can have anyone you want, as much as you want, for as long as you want.

He feels a wave of seasickness. When they all followed him to Sweden, and Nathan tried to talk him into going back with them, it was as if he knew; Even before Skwisgaar knew it himself. Nathan always saw him as special, but he never made a big deal out of it. Musically speaking, he was always Skwisgaar’s toughest, yet fairest, critic. Coming out of the ER, knife wound packed with gauze, there was little exchange of words. Nathan gave him a look that said ‘you’re lead.’ Not a question, an order. It said, don’t even try to pretend you don’t want it, of course you want it, of course we were always gonna end up here. This is who you are, actually. This is where you belong. He said all that with one look, and then got in the car. 

Skwisgaar gives him a chaste kiss on the lips. “It means dat I cares abouts you,” he says. “Too much to horts you.” The coolness jolts him. It doesn’t feel as natural as with Toki, but it doesn’t feel bad either. His fingers spark at the contact without his permission and he repels away, climbing backwards over the chaise.

“Hurt me how?” Nathan asks. “What do you mean?” 

The sun is up. Everything is illuminated. 

Skwisgaar backs himself against the railing of the deck. Awful clarity cuts through the haze of desire. 

“Keeps dat away from me,” he says, pointing at the dagger. His eyes are blinking rapidly, flickering his vision. 

Nathan takes a mesmerized step towards him, the towel falling away, and Skwisgaar leaps into the air. Two wingbeats carry him to the lower deck. It’s cold on the open ocean, but there’s sweat dripping from his hairline. Nathan calls after him. He labors to slow his breathing. Shame is a knife in his throat.

Below deck, the halls are cramped and the ceilings are low, forcing him to duck and squeeze his wings in order to clear the elliptical doorways. When he carried Toki aboard, he chose a sleeping cabin all the way at the back of the ship, in an otherwise vacant section. The vessel holds up to three thousand passengers, but their party is less than eight hundred, leaving plenty of extra rooms. At least he can have some privacy, while he grieves over the body of his love. The intercom buzzes, announcing breakfast in the mess hall, and he scrambles faster, anxious to outrun the crowd. Serveta will deal with his public for him; He’s in no condition to interact with mortals.

Wired from rushing, he ducks through the hatch and locks the door behind him. Toki’s body is right where he left it: Lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, draped in an undisturbed blanket. 

Skwisgaar sits on the edge of the bunk, his wings awkwardly jammed into the narrow alcove, and pauses to catch his breath, listening to the sounds of the ship. His hand finds Toki’s shoulder and squeezes. He closes his eyes, trying to ground himself.

“ _I don’t know what’s happening to me,_ ” he says. “ _What do I do? How am I supposed to keep saying no to it?_ ”

The pipes groan and drip. The silence is unbearable.

You’ve already started interfering with people. You do it without even thinking. You do it because it’s in your nature— but don’t kid yourself, you also do it because you want to. You relish being able to control the people around you, their feelings and reactions to you. If you’re not careful, it could spin out of control so quickly. 

You compared them to Lego. You told Toki you could take living things apart, and put them back together like Lego. And you were proud of it, proud of how powerful you were becoming. 

His hands are shaking.

“ _I need rules,_ ” he says. “ _I need someone to tell me 'no.'_ ” 

But Toki is the only one who can give him that; And he doesn’t even know if Toki can hear him.

“ _I’m sorry I left you in here alone,_ ” he says. 

He searches the milky, vacant eyes. 

The stump has closed over, obviating the need for bandages. The dull healing is complete; There’s no motive force, no vital gore. The stretched flesh ends in a pock of scar tissue that reminds Skwisgaar of the navel on an orange. 

“ _I just— panicked, thinking you might never wake up. But you have to wake up at some point, right? I was being irrational._ ” 

He combs Toki’s beard, contemplating the negative space where Toki’s arm would otherwise be. The resentment he was nursing falters. Toki shutting down on him felt like rejection at first; But from here, it looks like just the opposite. Toki did this to protect him. His heart squeezes sweetly. The unimaginable sacrifice of a fret hand is the ultimate proof of love.

He bends over, pressing his nose to Toki’s neck and inhaling his skin. 

It’s already occurred to him that he might never be able to fix Toki’s arm; But it hadn’t hit him, until just now, that he might never be able to hear Toki play again. Somehow, these are separate realizations.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The top of the sea wall is patrolled by men with machine guns. The miners crowd the bow of the ship, waving their wool caps and shouting up at them. They’ve been at this for nearly an hour. A standoff is developing. 

One of the men barks into a megaphone: “¡Advertencia! ¡Identifica su embarcación!”

Skwisgaar’s not sure what he was expecting when he got up this morning, but it couldn’t have involved getting shot at by the Cuban military. In fact, he wasn’t expecting there to _be_ a Cuban military. He hasn’t seen anything to indicate the presence of government anywhere since they first left California. 

He dives headfirst to minimize the target area, zigzagging as the machine gun spray arcs upward to follow him. If he could just talk to these guys for two seconds— A glancing round skins his stomach on the way over the wall.

Reeling from the damage, he slingshots back through a window to find himself in some sort of control center. People in headsets scatter, shouting in Spanish, as he tumbles face first onto the carpet, clutching his abdomen. Blood spurts between his fingers. His wing grabs a table, knocking off papers and cups of coffee, and lifts him shakily to his feet, his skin spitting out shards of glass. Superficial cuts close, leaving him freckled with blood. He grabs the doorframe, klaxons blaring news of an intruder as people in uniforms run past the door. 

Inside the sea wall is one long hallway. He lurches along the industrial tile floor, wings cocked at different angles. Boots approaching means more guns. If he could just find whoever’s in charge here, and charm them— A head rush slumps him against the wall. 

Too bad: I liked this fleece, he thinks blearily. Subcutaneous fascia slip against his fingers. The abdominal muscles weren’t breached, so the healing should be quick. He rests his eyes, blood pressure plunging. Pain is chased with endorphins. The flush of light makes him sigh. 

It’s about to hurt a lot worse if you don’t move, stupid. 

He groans. Too late. Footsteps and voices surround him. He pushes off the wall, raising his blood soaked hands at the click of weapons. 

“Schkwischgaar?!”

He blinks away black spots, his strength returning. “Mordorface?!”

“Holy schit!” 

“Calls dem off, idiot!” 

Murderface throws up a hand. “¡Bajen el arma!” he orders. 

The men stand at attention, machine guns resting diagonally across their chests. 

“Why deh fucks you’s shootings at me?!” Skwisgaar asks, catching his breath. His wings drag. The skin on his stomach is already growing back, sticky flesh pulling painfully against the pulp of his clothing. “Tells dem to lets deh boats unsides you dildo!” 

Murderface steps out in front of the line. He’s dressed in green military fatigues, a red beret nestled between his curved horns, his face framed by a mop of woolly curls. A chain of bullets his slung across him. “Isch that really you?” he marvels, looking Skwisgaar up and down. A shaggy beard completes the ensemble. 

“No.” Skwisgaar straightens, expressing his full height. “It ams deh _others_ six-and-a-halfs foots glowings guy wiffs wings dat you knows.” 

“Why are you dressched like an L. L. Bean catalogue?”

“I don’t knows, why ams you dressed like Che Guevaras?!” 

The soldiers whisper. They don’t seem particularly disciplined or organized, which is unsurprising considering who’s in charge. 

“¡Déjalesch entrar!” barks Murderface, causing them to disperse. Their boots ring the tile, gun straps rattling.

Alone in the hallway, he approaches Skwisgaar and pats him on the shoulder, as if to make sure he’s real. The crease between his eyebrows deepens. “Isch Toki schtill with you?” he asks.

“And Nat’ans,” Skwisgaar nods. 

They stare at each other in delayed shock. Skwisgaar closes his mouth, realizing it’s open. The pain in his abdomen makes itself known as Murderface yanks him into a hug. He yelps, about to protest, but the hug reflex kicks in before he can think to stop it, and suddenly he’s got a faceful of tobacco scented curls. The chain of bullets presses uncomfortably into his chest.

“I can’t believe it!” says Murderface. “I thought we’d never schee you guysch again!”

Skwisgaar freezes, overwhelmed. No sorry, I couldn’t bring you everybody. See, I have Toki’s body, but I seem to have misplaced Toki. No big Dethklok reunion. Oops. 

The beard scratches his jaw as Murderface cranes to kiss him on the cheek, startling him out of his thoughts. 

“Dids you just—?” he sputters, bringing an incredulous hand to his face. “Who is you and what deh fucks you’s done wid’ Mordorface?” 

Murderface withdraws, fixing his uniform. “Uh, don’t be schuch a gringo,” he sniffs, eyelashes fluttering with condescension. “It’sch a cuschtomary greeting between brosch. I think you’ll find that in Latin America, there are different notionsch of maschculinity.” He slips his thumbs into his belt loops, daring Skwisgaar to laugh at him. 

But Skwisgaar sobs and kisses back. “I’s missinks you, you stupids dildo,” he says. He misses everything, the way it used to be. Most of the time he’s numb to it, letting his mind slip along the grooves of the present; But occasionally he’s struck, just for a moment, by the magnitude of what’s been lost.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They pour onto the beach, carrying their belongings, and are herded by the men with guns into centers for processing. Here, they learn that Cuba has already absorbed thousands of apocalypse refugees, mainly from Florida, Mexico, and the other Caribbean islands. The operation is chaotic, the soldiers brusque and threatening— but as they shuck their outer layers, blinking in the tropical sun, the people of Svalbard are just happy to have reached civilization. They are given temporary IDs made of cardstock, and chrome disaster blankets, and corralled into an old sugarcane warehouse to wait for their relief applications to be heard. There are promises of food and housing in exchange for work. There are patdown searches and interrogations. As their cards are stamped, they are each required to read a statement in English, promising to abide by the laws of the Cuban government— The last remaining human authority on Earth. 

When Florida fell, as Murderface explains, he and Pickles hitched a ride with a nightclub bouncer named Ysmail who they’d befriended in Miami, and ended up on the shores of Havana without much of a plan. After being separated from Toki and Skwisgaar in California, they’d gone to Florida to wait for Nathan, guessing it was as likely a rendezvous point as any; But when they got there, things quickly went south. The coasts were under water, and that water ran with blood. Soon, they were offering their services as freelance deities to the Cuban government in exchange for rum, cigars, and a place to crash. It was only with his help, Murderface brags, that the Cubans were able to construct the sea wall and repel the armies of the dead. Island nations faired better at first, because the horde was slow to reach them by walking across the bottom of the ocean; But eventually, all but Fortress Cuba had succumbed. They’ve beaten back wave after wave of the motherfuckers, leaving the base of the sea wall piled high with their claylike corpses. 

“Yeah, it’sch a pretty schweet gig,” Murderface is saying. He leans back, lacing his fingers behind his head, an uncut, purely demonstrative cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth. “I give the ordersch, you know, lead the troopsch into battle. And I throw anyone who givesch me lip in fucking Guantanamo!”

It’s evening by the time the ship has been fully unloaded, and Dethklok sit catching up around a bonfire on the beach, under the quartz-pink equatorial stars. Affectionate insults are passed around, along with a bottle of white rum. If not for Toki’s current condition, it would be just like old times.

“Ya’ve never thrown anyone in Guantanamo,” says Pickles. He sits cross legged, his first set of arms in the sleeves of an unbuttoned linen shirt, the lower ones folded over his lap. His sandy dreads are gathered into a ponytail, a pair of yellow tinted sunglasses perched on his head. The goatee is gone, his face clean shaven. His third eye is a drowsy slit. 

“That’sch ‘causche nonone’sch ever given me lip!” Murderface takes the cigar out of his mouth, pointing it like an extra fat finger. “The Cuban ladiesch call me Guillermo,” he says to Nathan. “That’sch William in Schpanisch.”

“No dhey don’t.” Pickles rolls his eyes. “No one cahlls you dhat.” He finishes off the bottle and tosses it into the fire, causing a momentary flash of blue.

The conversation continues in this vein for a while. Skwisgaar listens, saying little and seldom looking away from Toki. When the boat was cleared, he spent the afternoon helping his and Nathan’s parents move their belongings into the second story of a salmon colored casa particulares downtown. His mother made dinner, taking his ruined fleece to be washed and mended, and he sat with her and Týr on the little balcony, christening their new home. Someone found him a clean undershirt. Afterwards, he carried Toki out to the beach and sat beside him in a plastic chair, from which he hasn’t moved since, while the other guys built a bonfire in front of them. 

Eventually, Murderface’s boasts run out of steam, and they all turn quiet and sad. While Skwisgaar can’t take his eyes off Toki, for fear of missing the slightest hint of his revival, the others can hardly stand to look at him. He can feel their discomfort; He knows how crazy he must look, posing the body like a mannequin, and talking to it, and stroking it, but he can’t help himself. The ancient, animal part of him— the part that isn’t Skwisgaar but _other_ —can’t leave its mate’s side.

“Amber called me Guillermo,” Murderface mutters under his breath.

“She was makin’ funnaya, Dood.”

“That’sch your interpretation.” 

“Hold on,” Nathan interrupts. “Who’s Amber?” 

Pickles and Murderface share a look. 

“Dood,” says Pickles. He slides the sunglasses off his head and tucks them in his breast pocket. “My sister? Amber? Ya met her like, a dozen times.”

Sister? Skwisgaar turns. Seth’s wife? 

The muscle memory of holding a weeping Pickles as they huddled together under an overpass in California twitches through him. On that final phone call, before all the signals went dark, his parents had been determined to stay in Australia with Seth and die of their own stubbornness. 

“Pickle?” he asks. “Yous family…? Dhey makes it?” 

Murderface winces, and Skwisgaar realizes the answer before he’s even finished speaking. 

“Nah.” Pickles’s face falls. Without the eyebrow piercings and goatee, it looks softer and sadder. “Amber, she uh… She gaht out with dah kid, Connor. On one of dah last boats.” His throat bobs. The second set of hands twist in his lap, fingers lacing and unlacing. “But she couldn’t convince my folks to go with ‘er.”

“I’m sorries,” says Skwisgaar. His palms heat, urging him to touch, but he holds back. 

Resurrecting Nathan’s dad made him feel invincible; The fact that he can’t produce Pickles’s family for him right now makes him feel like a fucking fraud. The limitations of his powers frustrate him, even as their magnitude intoxicates and terrifies him. It’s one thing for a helpless mortal to be ground between the gears of fate, and it’s another for the God of Abraham and Toki to gaze down at the grand mechanism from on high; But he can’t bear this painful in-betweenness.

“S’okay,” Pickles sniffs, recovering himself. 

Nathan leans forward, straining to look sympathetic. He’s not very good at comforting people, and unlike Skwisgaar, he can’t cheat. “That’s, um. Brutal, man.” He coughs. 

Pickles scrubs his eyes. “It was weird at first,” he says. “When she gaht here, she started beggin’ fer dah kid’s life. Like maybe she thought I’d hold it against dah lil’ fucker dhat he was Seth’s.” 

“Did you?” Nathan asks. “I mean… Wait-sorry-is-that-an-inappropriate-question?”

“A little, at first.” Pickles shrugs. “But at some point, me n’ Amber started talkin’ shit about Seth… And it was like, fucken finally, somebody gets it!” He gives a morbid laugh. “She told me she only married him ‘cause she gaht knahcked up. Big surprise: He treated her n’ dah kid like crap.”

“So… D’you and Amber like? Pal around now? Is she- is she cool?” 

“Hahnestly?” says Pickles. “Yeah. I shoulda had a sister instead, all along! It’s like havin’ a brother…” He rubs his chin in thought. “…who’s a chick. Yanno what I mean?”

The conversation lulls again, and Skwisgaar strokes the back of Toki’s hand. Can you hear us? he wonders. Are you almost ready to wake up? He alternates, on an almost minute-by-minute basis, between serene certainty and careening despair. 

“Not to be a dick,” says Murderface breaking the ice, “but are we a hundred perschent schure thisch album _needsch_ rhythm guitar?”

“Yes.” Nathan glares at him through the flames. “All five of us are in the Prophecy. It won’t work unless all five of us play.” 

“Then that’sch it; We’re schrewed, right?” Murderface throws up his hands. He looks from Nathan to Pickles. “Unlessch you can give him one of yoursch,” he jokes nervously. 

It’s not very funny.

Pickles crosses one set of arms, the other dangling in the sand. “Pretty sure it don’t work dhat way.”

They stare past each other in silence. The tide is coming in.

The name of Dethklok keeps hope alive, in even the darkest corners of this desolated world. Refugees arrive at the port of Havana, waving makeshift flags made from old Dethklok t-shirts. What are they going to tell all these people? Even if Toki wakes up— _when_ Toki wakes up —how will he play with only one arm? 

Skwisgaar wonders whether Offdensen is still alive. If he were here, he’d know exactly what to do. Or maybe that’s just the childish part of his brain thinking; Maybe Offdensen, a mere mortal, would have no idea how to solve a god’s problems. 

“Pickle?” he asks timidly. “Can you reads his mind?” He’s been trying to work up the courage to ask since they landed, afraid of what the answer might be. 

Pickles looks apologetic. “Yeah, kinda,” he says. “I mean…” 

He slides out of his chair to kneel in the sand before Toki, gripping the plastic armrests in front of him to brace himself. The third eye opens, and Skwisgaar shrinks away from it, fixing his gaze on Toki’s fire lit profile.

Pickles touches a third hand to Toki’s forehead. “He’s dreamin’,” he says, with a diagnostic squint.

“He tolds me he couldn’ts dreams no more.” Skwisgaar frowns. 

“Well,” Pickles amends, “more like hallucinatin’. He ain’t really asleep.” 

No sleep? But Toki needs his rest; His mind aches without it. Skwisgaar’s throat produces a mournful trill. “What ams he dreaminks about?”

“Ehh…” Pickles hems. “Hard’ta say. Dah insidah his imagination looks like someone puked codeine an’ skittles all over dheir Lisa Frank trapper keeper.” He scratches the side of his head. “I’ve had acid trips dhat made more sense.”

“Ams he afraids? Ams he ins pains?”

“Nah.” He sits back on his heels. “I think he’s in… dah place he goes’ta run away from all dhat. Yanno, like. Dah way he used’ta get when his folks’d visit.”

“There you go,” says Nathan. “He’s done this before. He’ll wake up, just like he did before.”

“Yeah,” says Murderface, crossing his arms, “but what if he wakesch up and he’sch schtill a pschycho? What if he attacksch everybody? I don’t wanna be there when that happensch.”

“He’s not!” Skwisgaar snaps. “Shuts up, what ifs he can hears you?! You- you horts his feelink!” 

“Uh, okay. I know I’m not the only one who schaw Old Toki beat schome poor schap to death with hisch bare handsch. Scho now that he can literally kill me by _looking_ at me, I’m juscht schupposched to be cool with it and not aschk any queschtions?” 

“Shuts up!” His fists spark. “He’s not psychos! He’s not bads!” 

The bonfire is waning. Skwisgaar realizes everyone else is staring at him, and sits back in his chair. He looks to Nathan for support, feeling helpless. “He’s _not._ ”

Nathan sighs. “We’ll see. I hope you’re right.” 

Skwisgaar hides his face against Toki’s shoulder, struggling to control himself. The thought of Toki hearing any of this makes him frantic. He can feel their eyes on him, calling him crazy. The lightning fizzes through his blood. 

“All ofs you,” he hisses. “Bes nice to Toki.” 

Or I’ll make you, he thinks.

  
  
  


  
  


Around three in the morning, Pickles takes them out to where they’ll be staying: A concrete hurricane house on the beach. Inside is a large, high-ceilinged, single room floored with Spanish tile, a small bathroom with an aluminum tub, and a sleeping loft accessible by wooden ladder. There’s no electricity (for now, Pickles explains), but there is running water. A Soviet era ice box and wood burning stove are lined up along one wall to the left and right of a large, industrial style sink. A square wooden table, a few matching chairs, a steel cabinet, and a long leather sofa are the only other furnishings. A kerosene lamp provides the only illumination. 

The loft is taken up almost entirely by a large, low, steel framed bed with a cotton futon mattress. Depositing Toki among the brightly patterned woven blankets, Skwisgaar steps backwards off the ledge and lands with a graceful swish. The tile is cool beneath his bare feet. He hangs their guitars on a pair of metal coat hooks by the door, and stands there, sullen and silent, having finished his two seconds of ‘moving in.’

“A house warmin’ gift,” says Pickles, handling the bottle of rum on the table. “From some doods in dah gover’ment. Dhis is dah really good shit, so ya might wanna save it fer a special occasion.” 

Skwisgaar nods, barely listening. 

“Ya got yer soap, toothbrushes, all dhat shit,” Pickles continues. “Uhhh… Coffee, more booze, in dah cabinet. Dhere’s some food. And if ya need anythin’ else, yanno, just tell Murderface n’ he’ll make somebody get it fer ya. Okay?” 

“Ja. T’anks.” Skwisgaar pulls out a chair and sits down, draping his wings over the sides and waiting for Pickles to leave.

There are two windows, perfect squares of tropical sky in the bare concrete walls. In the Arctic Circle, the stars were green, but closer to the equator they’re pink. Skwisgaar wonders if the sky will ever go back to normal. 

“You okay dhere, Pal?” 

“Ja.”

Pickles sighs. Skwisgaar can feel him staring at the back of his head. 

“Yanno I can read yer mind, right?” 

He strokes his eyes over the wood grain, trying to think of nothing.

“Dood,” says Pickles. “Seriously.” 

“Fines,” Skwisgaar says. “I’s not okej. I’s psycho crazy. I’s, you knows— Bigs high mainten-anks backs-kets case. Ams dat what you wanna hears?”

“Dhat ain’t what I’m tryin’a say.”

“What’s you ams tries to says den, hah?” He rises from the chair, extending his wings, and closes the distance between them. It shouldn’t be very difficult to intimidate someone whose eye level is at your collarbone, even if they _can_ read your mind. “Is you afraid ofs me, Pickle?”

“Nah.”

“Wells, you shoulds be.” 

The third eye opens, making him flinch. Its searing pink and green opalescence reminds him of the aurora borealis, and he wonders what the resemblance might mean. 

“Should I?” Pickles asks. “Why? What are ya gonna do to me?” 

Skwisgaar’s feathers bristle, his face heating under the scrutiny of the eye.

He knows you’re not well. He’s seen your thoughts; About Nathan, about everyone. He knows how selfish, and desperate, and empty you are. Even now, he knows you’re debating whether or not to try and seduce him, in order to stop him from warning the others. 

“Don’t do dhat,” says Pickles. “You don’t need’ta do dhat.” His fingers curl into his palms, his face clammy with fear. He looks so small. Skwisgaar’s wings swallow him in blue shadow. 

You know exactly what you’re doing, when you use your body to control people. To get what you want out of people. You know what that’s called. 

“Nah, Dood. C’mon. Dhat’s naht what any of us think of you.” 

Whore. 

“Listen, okay? We can tahlk about dhis. I’m naht gonna go blabbin’ to anybody.” 

“What ams dere to talks about?” Skwisgaar hisses. 

“Yer goin’ through somethin’,” says Pickles, all four hands arrayed around him in a placating fan. “And yer thinkin’ ya might cross a line. But I know you don’t _wanna_ hurt anybody. You don’t hafta do anything drastic.” 

He’s terrified of you. He sees how hollow you are inside. You can’t function without constant validation. You fall apart the second everyone stops telling you how great you are. You know how pathetic that is, but you can’t help it. There’s no such thing as being safe. There’s no such thing as having enough. 

Something was taken from you. Something you can never get back. You know that. 

“Aw, man.” Pickles crumples. Skwisgaar’s never seen him look so sickened. “Dhat’s… I didn’t know,” he stammers. “When ya mentioned dhat stuff— Back in dah day— I didn’t know! Ya didn’t say it was like _dhat!_ ” A hand claps over his mouth. 

“You—?” Skwisgaar takes a step backward, the backs of his thighs hitting the edge of the table. “Whats did you sees?” he asks. He’s shaking. “Whats did you sees?!”

Ingemar. He’s talking about Ingemar. He knows.

“Skwisgaar, I’m so sahrry.” Pickles shakes his head in denial. “I wasn’t tryin’ to pry—”

You’ve never really told anyone. You couldn’t even tell your own mother. But now he knows.

“Gets out,” Skwisgaar says. Rage lights him from within, his skin arcing like a Tesla coil, his hair spindling outward with static. His ears are filled with the pulse of helicopter blades.

“Okay! I’m goin’!” 

The bottle shatters, spraying the table with glass and rum. 

“GET’S OUT!” he screams, his voice layered with reverb. 

The door swings on its hinges. 

He stands against the table catching his breath until the puddle of alcohol reaches his heels, and then walks over to close it. 

Pickles knows about Ingemar.

The sound of his vomit splashing into the sink reminds him of throwing a bucket of slop to the yardwolves. He runs the tap, grabbing the plastic toothbrush from the table, and scrubs his gums raw. The water is lukewarm and salty.

He throws the toothbrush against the wall. He throws the key to the house, on its cast iron ring. He thrashes and screams. Then, exhausted, he walks over and picks them back up. He finds a cotton bar rag, and cleans up the smashed bottle, collecting the visible shards of glass into an aluminum bin under the sink. He extinguishes the lamp.

A single wing beat carries him up to the loft, and he throws himself down on the mattress. It’s dark and warm up here. He screams into Toki’s chest. When he gets tired of screaming, he climbs on top of Toki and pulls the blankets over them both.

“ _Help me,_ ” he pleads. “ _I need you._ ” 

He rocks them together, trying to stimulate some sort of connection. Despite his lack of breathing or heartbeat, Toki is still warm and pliant, with the same pleasant mineral scent. Holding him is less like holding a corpse, and more like holding a disturbingly realistic sex doll. 

“ _Please come back,_ ” he chants over and over. “ _Please come back._ ”

The future he felt so certain of has rapidly receded from the horizon of his expectations. Forget waking up together in some beautiful cabin in the woods to a rambling four hour breakfast, and playing guitar in the turning shadows of the evergreens, and swimming in rivers, and running with wolves, and having sex in a bed of wildflowers under the stars. At this point, he would settle for a blink of acknowledgment. He feels, at last, that he understands Toki’s desperation, only now that it might be too late. 

He fingers the rainbow rope bracelet, still tied around Toki’s wrist. The colors are dirty and faded. He compares it to his own, which has faired only slightly better. Soon, the delicate embroidery floss will break. Eventually, Emma and Lea, wherever they are, will die, if they haven’t already. He stares down the length of his and Toki’s torsos into the cave mouth of the covers. However they adorn themselves, whatever they surround themselves with— objects, clothing, dwellings, people— all of it will eventually wear away. Even the landscapes. Even the stars. The world is sand around them. Their naked bodies are the only real things. 

He rolls over, gazing up at the blackness of the ceiling. If he listens carefully, he can still hear the ocean. He imagines the darkness is the vacuum of space, the Earth falling away beneath them. He imagines them floating forever like space rocks. 

A short vibration, so quiet he might have hallucinated it, tickles his ear: ♪

“ _Toki?!_ ”

He spins around, twisting the blankets. 

“ _Toki, is that you?!_ ” he asks, pressing his ear to Toki’s chest. 

Again: ♪

The sound jolts his nerves, pulling an involuntary trill from his throat. He squeezes Toki’s waist, closing his eyes and straining to listen with his whole body. “ _Can you hear me?_ ” he pleads. “ _Two eighth notes for yes._ ” He waits, needing to be sure. 

This time, it’s unmistakable: ♪ ♪

He sobs. Aching hands stroke Toki’s feathers. Skwisgaar can feel his body purring, trying to initiate a bond, but Toki’s psyche is still closed to him. The eighth notes are all he gets. 

“ _Can you feel that?_ ” he asks, massaging Toki’s back. “ _Does it feel_ _good?_ "  
  


♪ ♪

The affirmation hits his blood, flooding his starving brain with endorphins, and he droops with relief. He tries to picture an eternity in which his needs are met by the absolute bare minimum: A warm body that says yes to him. 

“ _Do you love me?_ ” he asks. He holds his breath, waiting for the answer. 

♪ ♪

Goosebumps pour from the top of his head to the soles of his feet and the tips of his wings. A million other questions press against his tongue, but he doesn’t want to jinx it. He rolls them onto their sides, wrapping Toki’s wing around him like a blanket. This futon is the universe. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is real. Together, they have all the power, and no one else can touch them. 

“ _I love you, too,_ ” he says dreamily, letting the light drug him to sleep. 


	8. Chapter 8

In the morning, the ocean lies crumpled at the end of the beach, like the blankets kicked to the foot of the bed during the night. The tide pools hum with green algae and minnows, hydroids and isopods, starfish and clustered black mussels. Each one a tiny, swirling, silver galaxy cupped in a stone dimple along the shore. Their music slips along his nerves, his inner mechanisms recalibrating themselves to the tropical biome. When he was human, he got jet lagged; Now, he gets this. Wherever he goes, his body plugs itself into the environment, sensitizing him to its particular local geographies and biotopes. 

He wakes up to a post-cry hangover, his eye sockets throbbing, his mouth sticky and dry. The blankets are twisted around his ankles. The tide pools call to him, and he groans with resentment, trying in vain to block them out. He doesn’t feel like being tropical today. One of his hands is sandwiched under the pillow, the other one splayed over Toki’s chest. Red sunrise fills the windows, leaving the loft cloaked in brown shadow. 

The chest under his hand is breathing.

He jerks upright, bouncing onto his forearms. Toki’s eyes are closed, purple lips softly parted. Veins of faint light ripple across his skin, forming the crests and troughs of a sine wave. Shallow puffs from his nose ruffle his beard. He’s not a _thing_ anymore. He’s—

“ _Toki?_ ” Skwisgaar shakes him. He presses his ear to Toki’s chest, measuring the thready halftime of his heartbeat. His head is pounding, sore nostrils chaffing on the front of Toki’s shirt. He could puke with joy. “ _Toki!_ ” he shouts, losing all sense of appropriate volume.

The dreamless not-sleep is light. Toki chirps, his shiny eyelids fluttering open. After weeks of studying an unrecognizable mask, the return of his familiar face is startling. The wide mouth presses into a mute line, the pale eyes flickering with confusion. His puffy face and staticy hair suggest a weekend bender, rather than a month-long coma. Where a mortal would have wasted and blistered, he just laid there as unspoiled as a fairytale princess in a glass sarcophagus. 

“ _Toki!_ ” Skwisgaar holds him down, kissing his cheeks against the grain of his beard. “ _You’re back!_ ”

“ _…gaar?_ ” Toki struggles weakly, squinting under the assault. His arm jerks with vague intention, as if his brain’s forgotten how to move it. His nervous system is out of tune. “ _Wha—?_ ” he creaks, numb lips fumbling to catch up with his tongue.

Skwisgaar kisses his nose, his ear, his shoulder, his throat, never pausing long enough to answer him. There’s not enough room in the loft to open his wings, but they beat against the ceiling, refusing to be still. “ _You’re back_ ” he gasps between kisses, unable to come up with any other sentences. “ _You’re back— You’re— Toki! You’re back!_ ”

Toki snaps rigid in his arms. His blue pupils are wide, iridescing with night vision as he registers his surroundings. “ _Where—_ ” he creaks. “ _I thought— the snow_.” 

One hand circles Toki’s waist, the other cupping the back of his neck as Skwisgaar mashes their faces together. His sternum rumbles, his heated skin buzzing, his hard-on poking Toki’s thigh. During Toki’s absence, grief and hopelessness were punctuated by intermittent surges of abandonment and rage. “You don’t ever does dat to me again,” he hisses. “You don’t fuckings ignore me likes dat. Understands?” Overcome with a combination of giddy relief, vague arousal, and paradoxical vengefulness he has no idea what to do with, he closes his eyes, drawing hieroglyphs on Toki’s forehead with the tip of his nose. 

When he opens them again, Toki is staring. His fingers rise, trembling with awe, to peel back Skwisgaar’s bottom lip. Seeming to decide that Skwisgaar is real enough, he looks down at the futon to see if it’s real, too. His legs fidget, hand flying to his belly as he discovers his prone position, the pillow under his head, the jumble of soft clothes and bedsheets against his skin.

“Does you know where we ams?” Skwisgaar quizzes him. He can practically see the needle skip in Toki’s brain. How strange it must be, to black out in the freezing cold and darkness, only to wake up somewhere soft and warm. 

Toki shakes his head ‘no.’

“We makes it to Cuba.” Skwisgaar smiles. 

His smile slips.

Toki whimpers, eyes darting around in fear. It’s not even clear if he heard. He looks lost.

“What’s wrongs?”

He rolls onto his side and presses his face into the mattress. His back shudders beneath the gray tank top Skwisgaar dressed him in, one arm wrapped defensively around his head, and the stump of the other flushed tightly against his ribs. He looks like he’s bracing for an explosion.

“Toki, what’s wrongs?”

His voice is muffled by the mattress. “ _Please—_ ” he says. “ _I’ll be good._ ”

He didn’t expect to wake up like this at all, Skwisgaar realizes. He expected to wake up alone, in the snow.

“Shhhhh…” Skwisgaar strokes the middle of his back. A subaudible whine quivers beneath his fingers. Adrenaline ebbs from his bloodstream, and he regrets coming on so strong. “I shouldn’t haves wokens you,” he whispers. “I was too unpatients.”

Black wings gradually relax under his petting, and he lays his head back down on the pillow, watching the rise and fall of Toki’s outline from behind. 

“Dids you gets deh rest you neededs?” he asks. 

Toki nods stiffly, eager to please. “ _It’s— warm here,_ ” he says. 

Skwisgaar reaches over him to take his hand and run it along the contour sheet, teaching Toki the texture. “Dis ams our bed,” he says. “You likes it?”

This time, Toki’s nod is frantic. 

“Is pretty cozy,” Skwisgaar agrees. He doesn’t know what else to say. 

Leaving his arm draped where it is, he presses his forehead to the middle of Toki’s back and hums under his breath, building a melody around the drum of Toki’s heartbeat. The painful silence is over. He can’t even remember the last time he went this long without composing. 

They stay like that as the sunrise dips them feet first in red alpenglow. Eventually, they climb down from the loft to eat breakfast, shivering and exposed beneath the high ceiling. 

The loss of an arm has thrown off Toki’s gait. His shoulders curl forward, eyes watching his step, wings bony and crooked behind him. Bent, abbreviated, hollowed out, he shuffles across the floor and lowers himself into a beach-worn hardwood chair. 

The open windows cast two intersecting trapezoids of light across the Spanish tile, the ocean breeze sighing between them. Skwisgaar rummages around the kitchen area, coming up with a tin of coffee, a loaf of bread, and a dozen eggs. He lights a fire brick made of compressed sawdust and stands in front of the stove deliberating, the carton of eggs in his hand— until he remembers that Toki hasn’t eaten anything in weeks, and decides to cook them all. He sings to himself as he works, feathers fluffing in satisfaction, having settled into a kind of giddy derangement. By the time he’s done plating the scrambles, the percolator is hissing. 

“You must be so hungries,” he says, setting the plate on the table. He grabs the back of another chair, expectant. Playing house.

But Toki is in no condition to play along. He stares, shellshocked, at the healed stump, lifting it slightly, as if he can’t figure out what it is.

“Here you goes, Sleepinks Beauty,” says Skwisgaar, trying to distract him with a fork. When Toki doesn’t take it on his own, Skwisgaar grabs his hand and forms his fingers around the hilt. He manually straightens Toki’s shoulders, arranging him to look a bit less wilted in the chair, before stepping back to admire his own cooking. Not bad, he thinks, for someone who barely learned how to boil water for pasta in his previous life. 

Grabbing the percolator and two metal cups, he pours them both some coffee and sits down across the table. Feeling hungry, but wanting to leave the eggs to Toki, he opens the paper bag and tears himself a hunk of bread. It’s a little stale. The coffee helps.

“Is goods?” he asks.

Toki pokes at his scrambles, trying to be agreeable. “Takk.” The stump is clamped to his side, the right hand wavering as it lifts the fork to his mouth.

Skwisgaar smiles, watching him eat. It’s not exactly the domestic bliss he was picturing, but at this point, he’ll take it. 

“What’s you thinks of our littles house on deh beach, eh?” he asks, gesturing around with his cup. “I actuallies t’inks it ams kind of cools, in likes eughh… layabout bohemians kinda way.” 

Our house. The words taste so good in his mouth. 

Last night, he felt nothing for it, but showing it off to Toki stirs a certain attachment. It’ll be so nice to have a regular place to stay again that’s just theirs. And now that Toki’s awake, well. He flutters. The door that Svalbard slammed on all his fantasies is cracked open again. Maybe their future together won’t be all he dreamed of; Maybe Toki can never be fully healed. But they can at least have some of it. Most of it?

He takes a sip of his coffee. “Is too bads you missed me carryings you over deh t’reshold, as it were.” He smiles.

Toki grunts his agreement without looking up as hunger takes over. He cleans his plate, washing it down with a gulp of hot coffee, and reaches for the loaf of bread with a single-mindedness that says he doesn’t know when he’ll be allowed to eat again. 

“Pickle and Mordorface ams here, too,” Skwisgaar tells him, pushing his soreness towards Pickles aside in the hopes that this will cheer Toki up. 

Toki’s throat bobs, cheeks full of stale bread. 

“You knows what dat means,” Skwisgaar teases. “We’s outvoteds in deh band congress once agains. You ams gonna hasta prackstice yous Anglish.”

“ _Why?_ ” Toki finally speaks. He surrenders the remaining half loaf, his appetite disappearing. “ _It’s not like I’m in Dethklok anymore._ ”

“Of course you’s in Dethklok.” Skwisgaar scoffs, weirdly angry.

“ _But I can’t even—_ ”

“Anglish!”

Toki lays his fork across the empty plate. There’s a bit of egg in his beard, which somehow makes him look even more tragic. 

Skwisgaar gets up, grabs the bar rag from the aluminum bin under the sink and walks back over to wipe it away. From this angle, Toki’s mouth disappears completely. The beard needs a serious trim. 

They both look down at Toki’s hand: The squarish palm, the blunt, bluish fingers, ticcing with ancient muscle memory. Skwisgaar stands over him, still covering his lips, as though daring him to say it. The rag still smells like rum. 

“I can’ts play.” Toki slumps.

The hand curls into a fist. Skwisgaar doesn’t argue. He clears the table and puts the dishes in the sink, washing them with bar soap because they don’t have any detergent. One of the plates shatters from being scrubbed too hard and he freezes, counting to ten, before picking up the pieces and tossing them into the bin. Microscopic grains of glass sift under his feet. Daylight reveals that he didn’t do a very good job of cleaning up the broken bottle. He can feel Toki watching him, but he doesn’t trust himself to turn around just yet. He searches the cabinet, taking inventory: Coffee, booze, lard, salt, bar soap, kerosine. Bundles of dried chiles and chains of fresh garlic hang from a wooden rack above the sink. 

He soaps up a new bar rag and starts wiping down every available surface, even using his wings to reach the top of the metal cabinet. He refreshes the rag, rinsing it until the water runs clear before wringing it out, and when he runs out of surfaces, he gets down on his hands and knees to swab the floor. And when that isn’t enough to get it out of his system, he grabs a toothbrush and starts scrubbing the grout.

The angle of the sun steepens, changing the pattern of light on the tiles, and Toki watches him from the sofa, settling into one of the beams like a cat. The thin sheen of soapy water develops little holes, like a ream of transparent lace, before evaporating completely. Quiet falls over them, only the sounds of the waves, and their breathing, and the wet cloth filling the space. 

After nearly an hour, Skwisgaar is satisfied. He tosses the rag and the toothbrush into the bin under the sink and retrieves the Le Grande from its coat hook by the door. Unclipping the nylon strap, he hangs it back up and starts fretting the guitar freehand. Not playing anything in particular, just the chordophone equivalent of clearing one’s throat.

Toki watches him approach the sofa. His expression is unreadable, his inner hum clamped quiet. One wing falls, solid black, in the shade, while the other shimmers blue in the stripe of sun. 

Skwisgaar stands to one side of him, shins hitting the leather seat cushion.

“Evert’ing ams temporaries,” he says, breaking the silence. “But not’ing ams as temporaries as musics. It’s dere…” He plucks the high E string, letting a pure tone hang in the air before fading away. “And den it’s gone.” He turns around, taking a seat. The leather is warm. He waits for Toki to face him and says, “Imagines staking your whole soul on somet’ing likes dat.”

Toki doesn’t respond. Head hanging, he reaches down to pick at a snag in his sweatpants.

“You plays for me,” Skwisgaar says. 

“ _How?_ ”

“Anglish!” He spreads his legs and pats the seat between them. “Comes here, silly.”

Eyeing the Le Grande with suspicion, Toki slots himself between Skwisgaar’s thighs and allows himself to be hugged from behind. The guitar hits his belly, caging him in Skwisgaar’s lap. He makes a little ‘hhnck’ of frustration, groping for the English words: “Only gots… one hånd.”

“Always wiffs deh ezkuses.” Skwisgaar spins the guitar around. “You lorns to fret wit’ yous right hand,” he says, curling Toki’s fingers around the neck. “And I picks it for you.” He strums an open chord. “Until we gets you one of doze real cool hook hands for to picks wit’.”

Their wings make the position a little awkward, Skwisgaar’s draped over the back of the sofa and Toki’s spread horizontally across the seat. Skwisgaar has to stretch over them to reach the guitar, and every time Toki’s back muscles twitch he gets a faceful of feathers. 

He peers over Toki’s shoulder, stabilizing the body of the guitar and waiting for Toki to take hold of the fretboard. “Plays me, ehhhhh… E harmonic minor scale.”

Toki tenses. For a second, Skwisgaar’s worried the neck might snap in his grip. They’ve both had to learn to modulate their strength in order to avoid breaking things, but it doesn’t always work when they’re distracted or emotional. 

A timid E is followed by an F sharp, which is followed by a slightly garbled G. There are long pauses between each note, as Toki hunts for the correct finger positions. 

“Dat’s good,” says Skwisgaar, after the final, laborious E is struck.

“No is not! I barely hits any deh note!”

“Oukay, fines. It ams pure dildos. I was just tryinks to be enzcorgagings.” 

“Is umpsides downs an’ backwards,” Toki complains, sounding like himself for the first time since waking up. 

“I knows.” Skwisgaar spiders his fingertips on the pick guard, strumming with the side of his thumb. “I taughts myself to plays on boff sides, remembers?” 

“Das _you_ ,” Toki mopes. 

Skwisgaar noses his hair out of the way to kiss his shoulder. It feels so good to argue about the guitar again, even under such unfortunate circumstances. Even the loss of Toki’s arm, which only yesterday seemed like the end of the world, now seems like something they can maybe learn to live with. 

“You already has deh knowledge and tecksniques,” he says. “You just hasta develops new fingers memory.” 

Toki fidgets and Skwisgaar’s right arm grabs him, ordering him to stay put. 

“Is nevers gonna be det samme.”

“So you’s not even gonna tries?” 

The stump rests in the curve of the guitar body, stroking the polished maple like a lover’s waist. The fact that Toki’s complaining about the difficulty is a good sign, because it means he’s at least considering this. He trails his fingertips up and down the strings, just getting a feel for them. Skwisgaar already had calluses on both hands when he was human, so he wonders if Toki will be able to develop them, or if his immortal skin will resist it. 

“You worries om fingers mine,” Toki says, sensing his thoughts. “Is okej. Dem er harde. Not horts.” He flexes his hand, pulling the tendons in his forearm, and hits the first E again. “Not all senskitives baby skin likes you.”

Skwisgaar nips his ear, making Toki kick. “Nej?” he asks. “Not at alls?” 

“Stoppe det.” Toki squirms. 

“Don’t sounds like Anglish to me…” 

“Stops dat!”

Skwisgaar’s tongue slides into the groove where the cartilage meets his skull. “You feels dat?” he whispers.

Toki’s pulse leaps in a strange combination of pleasure and fear. “Ja,” he says, his head tipping forward, despite his objections, to give Skwisgaar better access to his neck. It’s as if he’s afraid he’ll be punished for liking it; As if he can’t believe this is still allowed. 

“Dis amn’t so bads, is it?” Skwisgaar asks him.

“Nej.” Toki surrenders. His wings jerk, an anxious cross beat rolling down his spine. His demeanor shifts, the playful, eager, competitive Toki vanishing as suddenly as he appeared. The one who takes his place is meek and tense.

“You tries again for me, okej?” Skwisgaar guides his wandering fingers back to the twelfth fret, and after a few false starts, they make it through the scale. Then he orders Toki to do it again— And again, and again, offering little nips and kisses of encouragement, until his fretting is clean and fast, articulating every note. The sunbeams have narrowed to golden slits beneath the windows by the time he’s ready to call it a day. 

Soon hungry again, they go foraging. At low tide, they walk down to the end of the beach and kneel in the shallows with a wire basket, pulling mussels from the rock. Toki climbs a palm tree near the house to yank down coconuts, letting each one fall with a thud into the sand. And when he’s finished, Skwisgaar rubs the trunk with a glowing palm, commanding the tree to grow more.

Between the two of them, Toki is by far the superior cook. He opens one of the coconuts with a machete, drains the sweet water into a glass, and reaches inside to scrape out the meat with his powerful fingers. Because they don’t have any kitchen knives, he grinds the garlic and chiles with a mortar and pestle and heats them with the lard until aromatic in the bottom of their only pot. Then he grinds the coconut meat into milk and adds it to the pot along with the water, and tosses in the live mussels, and boils them until their shells open. 

It’s pink dusk by the time they sit down to dinner. They eat the mussels with the rest of the bread and tip their bowls to drink the fragrant broth. Still hungry, they open up another coconut, carving out the fatty flesh, and wash it all down with a dram of gold rum. Afterwards, having absorbed just enough calories to take the edge off, they climb up to the loft and stretch out in bed.

They’ll need to hit Murderface up for supplies. He seems to be the one in charge here, Skwisgaar explains, laying his head on Toki’s chest. Yes, _that_ Murderface, he yawns. I know, I know.

They close their eyes, digesting. Toki’s nails find Skwisgaar’s scalp, and Skwisgaar loses himself in the heartbeat under his ear. It’s so different from lying here with an empty doll. He feels a painful surge of love for Toki’s immortal body, just for existing, just for being here. Just for having a mind inside of it that can hear him, and recognize him, so that he’s not just screaming into the void. He loves the heart just for beating and the lungs just for breathing. That vital metronome brings him peace. After weeks of arguing with himself— his personality denaturing into its component parts without an interlocutor to keep him sane —it’s just about the only thing that can. 

But Toki is preoccupied with other things.

“ _What am I to you if I can’t play?_ ” he asks the ceiling. “ _What are we to each other?_ ”

Skwisgaar frowns up at him, folding his hands over Toki’s chest and propping his chin in the frame of them. They gaze into each other’s eyes until they don’t look like eyes; Just glistening, twitching, alien orifices fringed with horrible buglike hairs. Considered too closely, their faces turn abstract and monstrous. But the dissociative feeling passes, and the very same arbitrariness that rendered them momentarily strange becomes the specificity that makes them familiar. 

“You wills play,” he says. “It just takes time.”

Toki’s fingers never stop combing his hair, maintaining a constant, idle rhythm. After a minute or so, it becomes clear that he’s keeping time with the waves; Not to comfort Skwisgaar, but to soothe himself.

“Is not deh sames. Won’t nevers be deh sames.” His face crumples, but his hand remains steady. “I sees now, what you ams seen in me før. Onlies now dat it ams too lates. I won’t nevers be what I could have beens to you, likes dis.”

Skwisgaar lays his head back down again and sighs through his nose, the heat of his own breath steaming his face as it traps in the hollow of Toki’s sternum. The guitar is what brought them together. Skwisgaar fell in love with Toki’s sound before he ever fell in love with Toki. He fell in love with chase, the challenge, the imitation, the flattery. The only sparing partner who could ever keep up with him; The only fan he ever really cared about impressing. It would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. He closes his eyes, meditating on the feeling of nails against his scalp. 

“Just be Toki,” he says. “Just be heres.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


The next morning, he wakes up alone. 

He throws off the blankets Toki must have tucked him into, and jumps down from the loft. The windows are red. The tiles are still cool from nighttime. Instead of lying on the sofa where they left it yesterday, the Le Grande is hanging with its partner by the door. He walks over to the table and pushes in a crooked chair. The washed pot is still upside down in the sink. He places it right side up on the stove top, and puts away the clean dishes and cups, now dry. 

Out of tasks, he pulls his pants on and heads outside. It’s breezy and mild, the pink stars kissing the water. The house is painted turquoise blue on the outside, making it stand out against the brown and green foliage behind it. The fine sand is gentle and warm on his feet. 

Toki stands fully clothed at the end of the beach, his back to the house, gazing out at the doom red horizon. He’s up to his shins in the shallows, soaking the hems of his pants, his hair drifting behind him on the breeze. Skwisgaar stands back for a minute, watching him watching the tide coming in.

This isn’t the teary reunion he wanted; In fact, neither of them has shed any tears, joyful or otherwise. Their first day together in their new house should have been… more. It should have been exciting to hear Toki play again, even just a basic scale. Instead, Skwisgaar finds himself fending off the sting of disappointment. 

He walks down to the edge of the water, standing slightly behind Toki so as not to get his pant legs wet, and squishes the sand between his toes, waiting to be acknowledged. Toki’s head turns, revealing his nose and beard at a three quarter angle, and then straightens again, saying nothing. The muscles in his back are bunched so tightly that the fabric of his gray undershirt pinches between them. 

“What’s goin’ on?” Skwisgaar asks.

The sun is halfway past the top of the sea wall. The sky is rapidly turning from apocalyptic crimson to purple, and soon it’ll be a balmy Caribbean blue. What a beautiful place to call home. 

“Toki, talks to me.” Skwisgaar tries again. 

The water around Toki’s ankles is sterile. The wind stops, as if the world is pausing to hear him speak. 

“ _Why did you bring me here?_ ” he asks. 

“Anglish.” Skwisgaar crosses his arms. He doesn’t know why he insists on it; It’s just something familiar to cling to, a way to reassert his authority. In the early days, Toki had to be reminded all the time. “We came here to finds Pickle and Mordorface. To finish deh album. To saves deh world. You knows dat.”

Toki turns around. He looks like his third cat just died. His breath smells like rum. 

“Why amn’ts you— mad at me?” he struggles. His English will click. His eyes fall on Skwisgaar’s bare chest; On the little pink scar. 

“Mad at you?” Skwisgaar pretends not to know what he means. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. 

“I trieds to cuts you open!”

“Dat wasn’t you.” He rolls his eyes, like ‘there you go again,’ even though this is the first time either of them has mentioned it. He’s been rehearsing the lines in his head so much that it feels like they’ve already been over this multiple times. “He was controllinks you somehow, just like Magnus.”

“It _was_ me!” Toki raises his voice in a kind of dry, shrill, whisper-scream. “He ams only ables to get unsides my brains because I’s havings all dese poisonous thoughts in deh foist place!” He sneers, showing teeth. “Just like Magnus.”

He turns and starts marching away from the house and perpendicular to the shore. When Skwisgaar catches up with him, he falls to his knees in the wet sand, the tide flowing in and out around his legs. He tries to cover his face, but it’s harder with only one hand. Shoulders heaving, he covers his eyes with the inside of his elbow and lets the stump dangle at his side. Skwisgaar watches him, arching his feet and slipping his hands in his pockets to wait for whatever comes next.

“It amn’ts as if I don’t knows what I’m like, okej?” says Toki, exhausted. “I knows what I’m like.” 

Giving up on keeping his pants dry, Skwisgaar walks in a half circle to stand in front of him. The part of Toki’s hair has been undone in the wind. Even his beard is flecked with sand.

“Ams always been easies to say it amn’ts my fault,” Toki continues. “I never stoodsa chance, right? Deh porfect ezkuse. How could I haves torned out any other way?” He looks up, the whites of his eyes turning pink. “But I don’t wanna be dis way. I don’t wanna be a viscous baby forevers.” 

He folds himself in half at Skwisgaar’s feet, his wings bladed downward in submission. The sand mud clings to his feathers like wet cement. 

“You shoulds be wid’ Nat’an,” he forces out. “You shoulds get deh fucks away from me. I trieds to cut your fucking hearts out.” 

“Toki, you cuts your own arm off to saves me,” Skwisgaar says, with the same exasperated tone as ‘No Toki, the Nigerian prince who just emailed you offering ten million dollars probably doesn’t wanna be your friend.’

“Den lets me saves you!” Toki sobs. 

Skwisgaar rolls his eyes, contemptuous. “From what? Your crybaby bullshits?”

The vein in Toki’s forehead pops. 

“ _From what He did to Her!_ ” he screams.

Gravity is sucked away. His hair floats, the water around him suspended in oblong bubbles that pull apart and recombine like giant, rolling beads of dew. The sand surrounds him in a curtain of glitter, each slow moving particle circling him in its own separate orbit. It would be beautiful. Skwisgaar spreads his wings, feeling his feet leave the ground. 

The outburst lasts for only a second before it all comes crashing back to earth. Toki collapses, face down in the water, his whole body wretching with sobs. 

“ _It’s not fair!_ ” he wails, as the waves recede. “ _Oh, god— It’s not fair— It’s so fucking cruel—_ ” 

He cries and cries until, seeming to tire himself out, he falls still. His hair swirls around him, the back of his head sticking out of the water. The sun is up. All around them, the world bluens. 

He sits back up on his heels, soaking wet. “You’s right, Skwisgaar,” he says numbly. “Dere ams no God. No God wid’ any sense of morcy woulds have alloweds somet’ing likes me to exist.” 

There is no victory in being right. 

“You know why He ams so confidents dat I torns out like Him?” He wipes his nose on the back of his hand and rinses his snot in the ocean. 

Skwisgaar doesn’t ask ‘why.’ Not to any of it. This isn’t what he wanted. This isn’t what having Toki back was supposed to be like.

“He tells me dat when She ams forst left Him,” Toki recounts, “He trieds to respecks Her wishes. But evenchkuallies… deh loneliness break Him. He realize it ams an unposskibles choice: To lets Her go, ams to falls alone t’rough deh darkness forevers. His mind can’t takes it.”

“He tells me no one could makes dis choice. Many peoples ams willings to die for deh one dhey loves; But no one could posskibly chooses to exists dat way forevers. Wiff no hope, no porpose, no enjoyments or pleasures of any kind; Nothing to looks forwards to, evers again. It ams too much. No one could makes dat kinda sacrifice. He tells me I ams born into deh same unposskibles sitsguachun. Dat I can’t escapes deh same fate as Him.”

He looks up, tears streaming down his face: “But He didn’t loves Her deh way I loves you.” 

Now, Skwisgaar is the one who feels like a statue. He stands there, staring down at Toki with the frozen, vaguely disapproving expression of the stained glass Gabriel he is said to resemble. He remains unmoved as Toki grabs his legs, groveling miserably. 

“Ilovesyousomuch,” comes gasping out of Toki’s mouth like one word. “How do I Iet’s you go? _How?!_ How do I chooses deh endless darkness? But I haves to— I _haves_ to!” The side of his face nuzzles the crook of Skwisgaar’s knee.

“What ifs—” he starts bargaining, “What ifs I leaves you and Nat’an alones, but. But you lets me comes near you, every once in a whiles? Maybe even— holds me? Just- Just so I has somet’ing to looks forwards to?” He looks up hopefully, resting his beard on Skwisgaar’s thigh. “Even if it ams only once every millions-krillions years; Ifs I just hads deh tiniest little hope of someday beings helds again—”

“I guess you t’inks you’s bein’ real nobles, hah?” Skwisgaar snorts. “Well fucks you, Toki.” He shoves Toki off. “I swear, you’s deh most self absorbed idiots I’s ever met. What about what _I_ wants? Why don’t you tries seeings t’ings from my porspectives for like, eugh, how abouts, _two fuckings seconds?_ ” He kicks the sand, his blood fizzing with anger and hurt. “You just decideds I’m gonna be wit’ Nat’an, wiffout consultings either of us, hah? I guess you and your fuckings teddy bear hadsa nice long convorskation about what ams best for me. You just makes up dis whole fansfiction unsides your head, and acks like everyone else ams s’posed to goes along wiff it. Even when you’s tryings to be all ‘matures’ and ‘vortuous,’ it still ams never occurings to you to acks other people what _dhey_ thinks!”

Toki flinches, shielding himself with a wing. “I just wants you to be happies.”

Skwisgaar clenches his fists and bends to shout in Toki’s face: “If you wanteds me to be happies, den you wouldn’t be talkings about leavings me!” 

Overwhelmed with wrath, he hurls a bolt of lightning past Toki’s head, the spray of sand petrifying into a fractal tree of glass. His chest burns, and he pauses to catch his breath. Feverish and trembling, he kneels in the water and cups Toki’s jaw with both hands.

“I knows you, Toki,” he hisses, sliding his face against Toki’s wet cheek. “Better den anyone has ever knowns you in your entire lifes.” 

Toki shivers as Skwisgaar whispers in his ear, his voice scarcely audible above the sound of the waves. 

“You’s empty insides. You craves deh spotlight, but when you gets it, you has no idea what to does wiffs it. Deh only thing worse den being looked at, ams nots being looked at. You’s likesa bottomless abyss dat no amount of attention can ever fills. You wants t’ings no one can ever gives you. Crazy, evil, fucksed up t’ings. No matter how many times I tells you I loves you, you never hears me. Yousa black hole. No amount of love can ever bes enough for you. I knows dat, because I’m deh same way.” 

He pulls back, clutching Toki’s skull and forcing Toki to meet his eyes. Toki’s mouth closes. The water laps around their waists.

“I can make people love me,” says Skwisgaar. “I can keeps dem alive, and I can fucks wit’ dheir emochuns, and I can… _do_ things, to dheir bodies. I can treats dem like toys, and I can makes dem thinks it ams all dheir idea. If I wants to, Toki…” His thumbs rasp over Toki’s beard. Their mouths are centimeters apart. “I can does t’ings to people dat ams worse den death.” He kisses Toki on the lips and withdraws slowly, tasting heat and salt.

The world sighs for him, even the waves falling over themselves to caress him. Every microbe in the quintillion gallon ocean loves him, in its primitive, single-celled way. But it’s not enough; It will never be enough. He can have anyone, and the knowledge is acid in his veins. He’s the last person on Earth who should have this terrible power. 

Toki slumps towards him. They rest their chins on each other’s shoulders. The world is saturated and woozy, like a dream. 

“Fights me,” Skwisgaar says in his ear. 

“What?”

“I don’t trusts myself anymore. I needsta know dat you can stops me. Show dat you’s stronger den me.” 

Toki retreats. “But I’m not.” He glances down at his soaked undershirt. “Not anymore; Not likes dis.” 

“No.” Skwisgaar shakes his head, panicking. 

You’re not well. You need rules. You can’t be responsible for being the strongest. 

The lightning charges ions in the water, arcing the current across his wet skin. His limbs feel like liquid metal. The sense of power gives him vertigo. He needs to know where the ground is. 

“Don’t looks at me like dat!” he cries. “Fights me!” He shoves Toki’s shoulders, feathers bristling with aggression. 

Toki staggers backward onto his feet and Skwisgaar surges after him. The glass sculpture shatters into a thousand pieces beneath them, scratching Skwisgaar’s knuckles as he pummels Toki into the ground. With only one hand to defend himself, Toki is at a disadvantage in this position. He headbutts Skwisgaar in the face, cracking the bridge of his nose. Blood the color of grenadine sprays both their faces. They roll in the glass, tiny wounds closing as fast as they open, and the salt water washes over them, cleansing and stinging. 

Skwisgaar spits, sinuses clogged with blood, vision whiting with pain as he fuses the bones in his face. Tensing his stomach, he throws himself against the weak point in Toki’s one-armed grip. He makes a break for dry land, but Toki is on top of him in seconds. Their waterlogged wings are heavy and cumbersome, dragging as they struggle through the powdery dunes. The sand stings their eyes. There’s a shard of glass, so sharp he didn’t notice it at first, embedded in his thigh. Painless on the way in, it bites like a knife as his flesh spits it out. 

Fired with frustration, he shreds Toki’s shirt like wet paper. His teeth sink into Toki’s shoulder, drawing blood, as Toki’s knee squeezes the air from his diaphragm. Every time Toki grabs him, he slips away. The stump is a liability; Toki doesn’t know what to do with it. His tackles lack conviction. The whole equilibrium and flow of his body is thrown off. 

“You’s obsessed wit’ me.” Skwisgaar straddles him, pinning his arm with both hands. “I sees you: Spyings on me. Stealings my clothes. Savings my hair. For years, Toki. You’s like one of doze psycho-crazy fans.”

Toki’s face heats with shame. “I’m sorries—”

Skwisgaar twists his radius, making him yell. “Don’t be sorries. Just admits it. Say you’s obsessed wit’ me. Says you fucking worships me.” 

Toki turns away, muffling his shame in the sand. His wings heave beneath him, useless under Skwisgaar’s weight. “Is true,” he gasps. “I- I worships you. Dere ams no God; You is my God.”

Skwisgaar bows, licking the sand from his chest, his hair teasing across Toki’s face. “Dis ams your life,” he says. “Dis ams what you has to looks forwards to.”

Toki moans. 

The darkness roars. 

One second, he’s a shadow, slippery and untouchable; The next second, his vicelike hold is crushing Skwisgaar’s ribs. 

Skwisgaar coughs, inhaling sand as his orientation reverses. The shore and the sea wall roll by in a panoramic blur. 

Finding himself on his back again, he tries to get his hands around Toki’s neck. They writhe on the ground, Toki’s core muscles flexing against him as he struggles to put even a millimeter of distance between them. At first it’s hard to breathe, but Toki adjusts his grip to allow his lungs to inflate. His arm is wrapped around Skwisgaar’s waist, gripping his stump to close the circuit. His thighs are wrapped around Skwisgaar’s legs, burying them partially under the sand. 

Skwisgaar pummels his back, trying to get him to let go, but it’s useless. He can’t get free. The darkness surrounds him like a weighted blanket, draining the fight from his limbs. He lays his head back in surrender.

“Okej,” he says, patting Toki’s shoulder. “You wins. Goods job.”

The scrapes and bruises all over him fade. Toki’s breath is warm on his neck. 

“You can let’s go me now.” He squirms.

“No.” 

“No?”

The hold turns covetous. Toki nuzzles him, frotting his leg slightly.

Skwisgaar sighs, vindicated and frustrated at the same time. Toki has him, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He closes his eyes, the darkness calming his body, making him purr against his will. It’s never felt so sweet and heavy before. Afraid of hurting him— or just afraid of judgement —Toki has been holding back. And here it is, like a feather bed: the ground. 

Toki stills, whining like he’s trying to stop himself from finishing. 

“Years ago,” he confesses, “I hads dis dream, where I was kissings your hands.” His voice is hoarse and strange in Skwisgaar’s ear. “And I puts your fingers in my mouff, and at forst I was just suckings on dem… But den, I bites. And I bites dem more and more, until I bites dem off. And eats dem.” He shudders, his core contracting. “I could feels deh- Deh bones crunchings. Deh bloods gushings unsides my mouff. But it wasn’t a nightsmare. It was... euphorics and sexuals.” 

A light, delirious laugh shakes Skwisgaar’s chest. 

Toki’s head pops up, affronted. “I can’t believes you!” he says. “I’s tellings you deh most perverteds, fucksed up thoughts I’s evers had about you, and you’s laughings at me!” He looks like he might start crying again. 

“I’s not laughings at you.” Skwisgaar catches his breath, looking up at the pool blue sky. “I’s laughings at _us_.” He stretches, gathering his wet hair out of the way, and peers down his nose at Toki’s flushed, tortured expression. “You know, dat coulds be arranged.” 

“What?”

“Eatings my fingers. Dhey woulds just, you knows. Grows back.” 

Toki wrenches him into a sitting position, black wings opening to shade them in lieu of a beach umbrella. “Don’t says dat!” he chokes. “I’m not jokings!” The cords of his neck are pulled tight. 

But Skwisgaar laughs in his face, feeling bubbly and hysterical. “Also.” He reaches between Toki’s thighs. “I seems to remember you mentions somet’ing abouts, ehhhh… _skinings_ me, and wearings me as a suit?” 

“Don’t—”

“Now _dat’s_ crazy, even for you, Toki.” 

“No! I didn’t mean—”

“But strictly speakings, it ams posskibles. I just grows a new one.” He whispers into Toki’s mouth, rubbing him through his sweatpants: “And den we could boffs be wearings my skin.” 

“Fffffff—” Toki sputters, horrified. His erection twitches. 

Taking advantage of his distraction, Skwisgaar slips out of Toki’s grip and beats his wings once, landing on his feet. “You hasta admits,” he smirks, “dat woulds be pretty metal.”

Toki kneels in the sand, trilling in distress. His unsatisfied arousal is comically visible through his soaked pants. “You tolds me you likes it gentle-nice!” he squeaks, scrambling to follow Skwisgaar back towards the house. 

“I does.” Skwisgaar pauses to wait for him. “But havings two unmortals bodies to works wit’, I woulds be eeuuuugghhh… _remiss_ , nots to conkemplakes deh sexual posskibilities.”

The sand is stuck to them like powdered sugar. 

Toki rushes him, throwing Skwisgaar over his shoulder so that his legs dangle in the air. 

“Euuuuk—!”

“Dis what you wants?” he asks through clenched teeth. “You wants deh _real_ Toki?” 

The cinnamon ferns part for him, the darkness distorting the space where he walks, as he carries Skwisgaar, kicking and fluttering, up the side of the hill. 

“Puts me down,” Skwisgaar snaps.

The real Toki says nothing. 

There’s a cool slab of concrete in the doorway, before the tile starts. This way, one can hose off before tracking sand in the house. The unfinished concrete bathroom consists of a pit latrine with a porcelain lid, a galvanized aluminum tub like the kind used for laundry, and a huge outdoor showerhead that runs into a drain in the middle of the floor. 

It’s almost chilly in the shade. Toki lays him down against the wall and turns on the showerhead, cranking the rusty lever all the way to hot. Not even bothering to pull them down his legs, he tears off Skwisgaar’s sweatpants and tosses them into the corner, before doing the same with his own. 

“Euuuuwow, real sexy,” Skwisgaar mocks. “Now what’s we gonna wear, genius?” 

But the real Toki isn’t laughing. 

There’s a new bar of soap in the bottom of the steel tub. He grabs it, peeling the paper wrapper with his teeth. The cheap pink bar is embossed with the word ‘ROSA,’ and smells like the pink marzipan hand soap in some airport bathrooms. He straddles Skwisgaar’s hips so that his erection slides between their bellies, pinning Skwisgaar to the wall beneath the showerhead. 

“Is all true,” he says, rubbing the bar in slow circles against Skwisgaar’s chest. “I pulls myself off, wearings your clothes.” The crust of sand is rinsed away, revealing smooth, slippery skin. He frowns in concentration, polishing the scar above Skwisgaar’s nipple. “I filmeds you on my phone, when you wasn’t lookings. Sometimes, on deh tour bus, I films you asleeps.” 

At first, the water is unpleasantly cold, but it heats up after a few minutes, filling the narrow space with steam. He rubs the bar into Skwisgaar’s hair, working up a lather, and uses his nails to scour the sand from his scalp. The artificial almond scent is sweetly inebriating. 

“I studies deh way you eats,” he says, “deh way you sits, deh way you drives, deh way you puts on your boots. Deh way you takes your shirt off, by crossings boff hands in front ofs you likesa lady. I saves TV footage of you, and studies dat, too. But I don’t even eggnogledge to myself dat I’s doing dis. I know it ams creepy and weirds. I know dere am somet’ing really wrong wiffs me.”

Skwisgaar slumps, unresisting, against the wall, as Toki washes his body with ritualistic intensity. When his scalp rinses clear, the bar strokes its way down his face and neck, lathering his underarms and swirling around his belly button. Sand and blood spiral away into the drain. A froth of delicate pink bubbles clings to the whorls of golden hair, the strong hand lavishing attention on each of his thighs. Skwisgaar swallows a moan, his wings splashing, as his groin receives the same loving, methodical treatment. Overwhelmed, he reaches instinctively for Toki’s face, drawing back his wet hair to get a better view. 

Without looking up from his work, Toki flinches. Conflict crimps his features. This wasn’t his plan. When he got up before Skwisgaar this morning, he was trying to work up the courage to leave. A somber _ostinato_ taps his breastbone: Weak. Addicted. Guilty. I was trying to save you from this. 

While the fret hand combs Toki’s hair, Skwisgaar’s pick hand reaches down to offer him some overdue mercy. 

The soap slides to the floor. Done teasing, Toki reciprocates. They curl inward, resting their foreheads on each other’s shoulders.

Watching them work each other gives Skwisgaar a voyeuristic thrill. His thighs are boiled red. The ridges of Toki’s belly are flexed tight. Their bodies are so similar, and so different. 

Toki’s hand is small for his height and build, but its shape is sturdy and masculine. A thick vein runs over the back of it, rolling as the tendons move underneath. There’s a dark spot under the thumb nail that’s always been there, a scar whose story Skwisgaar doesn’t know. His own hands are so long and spindly in comparison— skeletonlike, if he’s being uncharitable. His nailbeds are long, flat ovals, where Toki’s are square. Aside from the calluses, his skin is unmarked. 

How do they feel on you? he thinks. My calluses. 

Toki picks up the tempo. His jaw shifts against Skwisgaar’s cheek. He must be close. They’re both close. Their breathing is short. 

Skwisgaar cups his face, making Toki look him in the eye. Their knuckles brush. On impulse, he slips his forefinger into Toki’s mouth. The inside is a warm vacuum. Toki moans, sucking his finger up past the second knuckle. 

And bites down. The pain makes Skwisgaar gasp; But he doesn’t try to pull away. For a second he watches, mesmerized, as his own blood dribbles down Toki’s chin. The phalange crunches. His nerves are on fire.

“ _Oh my god!_ ” Toki spits the finger out. He tears away, covering his mouth with his hand, as though he were the one bitten. “ _I can’t believe you got me to do that!_ ” he hisses. His climax washes away into the drain. 

“Toki—” Skwisgaar adjusts his posture, finishing himself off. His finger is cracked, but not severed. The pain sharpens as the anesthetizing haze of orgasm fades. 

“Deh fuck is wrong wiffs you?!” Toki yells. He bends at the waist and slams his fist against the floor. “Deh fuck is wrong wiffs _me?!_ ”

Careful of the finger, Skwisgaar pulls him into a slippery hug. “S’oukay,” he slurs. His cheek burns against Toki’s neck. “ _Stay with me,_ ” he pleads. 

Toki trills, gradually relaxing against him. They breath together under the water. Skwisgaar’s back and wings prickle with goosebumps outside the stream. The magnitude of what they’re silently agreeing to washes over them— What it will mean to lose all control, to fall deeply in a new and sublime kind of love, to dwell inside each other’s madness. 

The other fingers curl against his palm as he draws the light into his lungs, focusing his energy to fuse the bone. With a hitch of breath and a pop of white sparks, the wounded forefinger joins the fist; The fastest fret hand in the world, restored. Toki watches— envious, enthralled. The only audience he’ll ever need. 

He reaches to blot a trace of blood from Toki’s beard. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


They wash each other’s wings, running out of hot water and enduring the cold until they’ve preened each other free of sand. Clean and shivering, they wrap themselves in towels and start a fire, sitting with their backs to the stove to dry their hair and feathers. Hungry to the point of paranoid delirium, they finish off the coconuts and rum. 

What He did to Her hangs in the air. Skwisgaar doesn’t know the details, and probably never will— Can’t decide if he wants to. He watches Toki, huddled in his white bath towel, and tries to access fear of him. There’s a line of fear there, but it’s so far back in the mix, buried beneath the lustrous harmonies. When he closes his eyes, he can see his mother on her knees with a power drill, changing the locks. He tries to imagine what it would feel like to be pursued across the Earth by an attacker who can slip through walls. What Najat must have felt. 

He hugs his knees, trying to fit them under the towel, and props his heels on the seat of his chair. The fire pops behind them. It feels so luxurious, lighting a fire when the sun is shining and it’s thirty degrees celsius outside. This is his equilibrium: Calm, and clean, and dry, and fed, and bathed in heat. For the first time since Svalbard, his thoughts are clear. He strokes his chin against his terrycloth covered knee. 

“ _Pickles knows about Ingemar._ ”

The heat condenses in the middle of his back, a delicious, liquid, almost-itching. 

“ _How?_ ” Toki bristles. 

The tiles are beautiful: terracotta brown, hand painted with curly, arabesque designs in kiln-bright cobalt blue. Skwisgaar squeezes his shins. 

“ _He read my mind._ ”

“ _He can’t— Do that!_ ” Toki twists in his chair. “ _I’ll kill him!_ ”

“ _No._ ” Keeping his hands clasped under the towel, Skwisgaar blows a semi-damp curl out of his face. “ _He didn’t mean it; It was a… misunderstanding between us. You won’t do anything to him._ ”

Toki hunkers, riled, unsatisfied. “ _Fine._ ” Jealous, maybe, to learn that Pickles got the story first hand, while he’s had to piece it together from what little Skwisgaar has managed to tell him. 

“ _It hurt,_ ” Skwisgaar says. “ _But in a way… Maybe it helped._ ” His feathers fluff, a preening reflex to help the water evaporate. The thin skin underneath them is tingly with the memory of Toki’s careful fingers. “ _It’s out there, now. Someone knows. In a way, that’s a relief._ ” 

“ _He told me I couldn’t tell anyone, because no one would believe me. Not even my mom. I remember thinking— Men like him must seek out kids like me. Kids no one cares about._ ” 

The soft crash of waves fills his pauses. He realizes he isn’t even crying. 

“ _He made me feel like no one could ever love me,_ ” he says. “ _He left me with this emptiness._ ” 

The chair beside him creaks. Toki kneels on the floor, ready to catch him. 

Skwisgaar peers over his knees at him. Sunlight streams in through the windows behind him, lifting particles of dust like a tractor beam. 

With eerie calm and clarity, he imagines his own soul, disassembled and spread out in front of him on a table like one of Toki’s model plane kits. One of the little plastic nubs, some vital, stabilizing beam, is missing. He crouches under the table, patting the carpet, but he already knows he’s never going to find it. He knows what Toki would do: Cut a popsicle stick into the right shape, and glue that in instead.

He uncurls his legs, dropping the towel, and Toki hugs them, resting his head in Skwisgaar’s lap. Simmering with possessive madness. Ingemar is almost certainly dead now; But if he were here, Toki’s low rumbling promises, I’d peel his soul from his body, cell by cell. 

“ _What I really want—_ ” Skwisgaar’s breath catches. He pets Toki’s head. He wants to be immersed, surrounded. Reassured and comforted. Admired from every angle. Celebrated every morning. Enfolded in darkness every night. He wants the kind of commitment that only another immortal can give him. “ _I know it’s unreasonable. It’s too much to ask of anyone. Even Nathan. It has to be you._ ” 

The bite mark on his finger has faded to a pale pink crescent. They can tame each other; Keep the world safe from each other. In fact, they must; It’s the only way. 

“ _You’re the only one who can say ‘no’ to me; Which means you’re the only one who can say ‘yes’ to me._ ” He thumbs Toki’s temples, waiting for Toki to look at him. “ _I need to be with my equal._ ” 

In a blur of shadows, he feels himself stolen into the air. His stomach flips, feet dangling for a second, and then the world is solid again, as Toki deposits them both on the futon. Blankets are piled on top of them as Toki’s arm and legs enfold him, trapping him in heat and closeness. A woven pattern of banana leaves is drawn over his eyes, and all he can see is the emerald light of the sun through the weft of the green wool. The musk of the sawdust firestarter clings to their feathers. Toki’s skin tastes like stainless steel. Their naked bodies twist together, perfectly fitted, like a smooth machine. 

It’s only noon, but the day is already gone. Skwisgaar feels something inside him unlock, some wordless compulsion— maybe the need to nest. They are safe here. The loft feels cozy and secret, like their own hidden drawer in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

They lie in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness for most of the day and part of the next. The fire burns itself out. The windows swell with night. The smell of smoke dissolves in the fresh, salty air. The blankets are kicked to the floor. 

Skwisgaar scratches his arm, finding it inflamed with little bumps. Somewhere under the bed, in a tangle of linens, is the insect net they haven’t bothered to put up yet. He opens his eyes and yells. His bare skin is covered in a pelt of black mosquitoes. He rolls and swats at himself like he’s on fire. 

The green blanket floats above him like a canopy and Toki laughs, pulling him back underneath it. The cloud of mosquitoes dissolves. The aura of death is a pretty effective repellant.

“Ffffffff—” Skwisgaar scratches. “Deh fucks you laughings at?” He’s bitten red all over, especially on his arms and legs. 

Toki squeezes his flank. “Your blood ams too tasty.” 

“Ja, you woulds know, wouldn’ts you?” Skwisgaar slaps his hand. He hides in Toki’s pillow. “You’s s’posed to protecks me,” he whines. The lesions fade, leaving his skin smooth and clear again; But the afterfeel of itching and crawling remains. 

The blanket is tucked around his ribs, trapping their body heat. That split second glimpse of the swarm feasting on him before he disturbed them is burned onto the insides of his eyelids. He breathes through his nose, trying to shake it. They even burrowed between his feathers. 

“I protecks you,” says Toki. 

Skwisgaar peels his face from the pillow. “Uuugggk— Mosqueetos. I gives you my pormissions to eradicates doze guys from deh Eorth.” 

Toki’s wing is fleecy beneath him. He curls closer, shifting his body against the sleek texture to scrub away the phantom bug bites. The wing hugs him under the covers. His cheek rubs circles, wisps of black down tickling the corner of his eye. 

“Anyt’ing for you.” The beard kisses his forehead. The humor is gone. 

“Oh, ja? Anyt’ing?” 

The kissing continues down the side of his face. “I worships you; Adores you. Whatever you wants, I obeys.”

Skwisgaar shivers. Yesterday flipbooks through his mind. Just what have they agreed to, here? Of course, he doesn’t expect Toki to bow to him consistently, in total contradiction of his giant-baby nature. Still, such words are potent. 

“What’s wrong wiffs me?” he asks, raking his fingers through Toki’s coverts. 

The beard attacks his throat. Toki is too busy adoring him to answer. 

“What kind ofs… insecure egomaniac… wants to be treateds like dat?”

Maybe they can get their hands on some citronella candles. Line the windows with DEET. He’s always been attractive to insects, but it’s a hundred times worse now that his blood is basically liquid lifeforce. 

He watches the fan of red light gradually spreading across the concrete ceiling. Sometimes, he feels magnificent. Other times, he looks at himself at thinks, this can’t be me. There must be some mistake.

“Why ams I like dis?” he asks. 

“Like what?” 

“How ams it posskibles to feels so superior to everyones… and likes garbage at deh same times?” 

“No, no.” Toki flips him over. Teeth only hint at danger; They never break the skin. “Don’t feels garbáge,” he licks. “You’s porfect.”

“Pffft, no. I’m not porfect.” Skwisgaar sits up halfway, letting Toki wallow in his lap. “Well, granteds, dere ams many porfect t’ings _abouts_ me.” He gives a playful shrug. “Porfect skin, porfect hairs, porfect pitch— to names a few. But I can’t exactlies be said to haves an unimpeachable character.”

“I don’t cares.” The tip of Toki’s nose fits in the hollow of his navel. “We decides what’s good and bads. We don’t hasta answer to nobody else.” 

His hair looks red in this light. Skwisgaar’s looks pink. 

“Well, even under dat philokskophies,” Skwisgaar counters, “I’s not porfect. I don’t even lives up to deh standords I sets for myself.” 

“I don’t cares, I don’t cares.” Toki’s face climbs his belly. “You’s porfect to _me_ ,” he mouths into Skwisgaar’s breastbone. “You won’t convinces me otherwise.” 

Skwisgaar’s head tilts back as Toki licks his chest. The attention is overwhelming. Tingles bleed from his core to his extremities, and he feels a childish thrill of defiance. Maybe Toki is right. Why shouldn’t he indulge himself? Why should he have to be reasonable? They don’t have to answer to anyone but each other. 

The tongue withdraws, saliva cooling on his stiff nipple. Toki sits back on his heels. They blink at each other in disbelief. 

“Yesterdays,” says Toki, “ I thought I was doomed forevers. And todays… I seems calm, but I thinks it’s a kind of shock. I don’t think it haves fully caught up wiffs me yet.”

“What?” Skwisgaar asks.

“How happy I ams.” 

“I thoughts you hateds dis.” He narrows his eyes. “Feelings subordinates. Not havings your own life, outside ofs me.”

It’s going to be hotter today than it was yesterday, he can already tell. There are birds singing in the grassy dunes behind the house. 

“Is complexcateds.”

He flexes his feet under the covers. Toki kneels between his thighs.

“I was… at war wiffs myself,” Toki says. His face is burning violet. “I felts ashamed for beings so… obsessed wiffs you. I was afraids you would rejects me ifs you knew deh true extent of it. And it was humiliatings, beings so dependants on you, and feelings like you could just casts me aside and replaces me whenever you wanteds.” 

Skwisgaar tilts his head in thought. His hair is almost long enough to sit on. They both need a trim.

“And when you’s humiliated,” he says, “you lashes out wit’ rage and violence.” It’s not a judgement; Just a statement of fact. He knows this about Toki.

Toki warbles softly, turning his chin against his shoulder. “You was right about honesty,” he says. “I never dreameds dat you could accepts me like dis.” He bows his head, wings flattening against the mattress behind him. 

Skwisgaar pauses, expecting him to rise; But he stays bent, waiting for some kind of permission. He cups Toki’s face, giving it an experimental caress. Rewarding his devotion. Reinforcing the behavior. His belly flutters. 

“So, it ams more about recogznitions,” he says. “Beings neededs back.”

Toki nods against his hand. 

The infatuation clashes with his ego. The desire to prostrate himself before Skwisgaar is embarrassing. The desire to consume him, or somehow become him, is both disturbing and impossible to satisfy. But it’s the fear of rejection and mockery that makes him so brittle and vicious. It’s Skwisgaar’s approval that he craves above all else.

Skwisgaar scratches him behind the ear. “So now dat you’s satisfied I needs you back, you’s happy? Dat’s all it takes? No more euuughhh… pyrostechnics?”

“Don’t laughs at me,” Toki whimpers. 

“I’m not.” Skwisgaar smiles. “Well, maybes a little. But you can laughs at me, too.” He stretches and yawns, realizing he’s painfully hungry. “Can barely gets outta bed in deh morning unless someone ams kissing my feet,” he says. “Dat’s just as ridiculous.” 

Toki’s jaw shifts. “You’s deh only God who can rewards or punishes me,” he whispers. “You’s deh only one who can hears my prayers.” He headbuts Skwisgaar’s hand, trying to pet himself with it. 

Skwisgaar kisses him on the lips. “I hears you.” 

A giddy hypermeter crackles between them. 

“Now,” he says, peering down from the loft, “we better gets some food in you. Makes you presentables. Is you ready to be Nice Toki?”

“Ja.”

“Toki I Can Takes Home to Moms?”

“Ja.” Toki smiles. The violet blush spreads over his chest. He grabs his stump in lieu of crossed arms, making his pecs stand out. 

Good boy, Skwisgaar starts to say, but there’s a knock at the door.

A key change. Toki growls and flattens himself on the futon, preparing to strike down any intruders. 

Skwisgaar stays him with a hand on his back. “Can we helps you?” he calls out, annoyed. 

The knocking turns to pounding. “Open up, it’sch me!” 

He swoops down, landing on his feet in front of the threshold, and unlatches the chain lock. Not even bothering to wait for their guest, he strolls over to the stove and gets to work restarting the fire. 

Murderface enters, carrying a canvas bag, and sets it down on the table. He’s wearing a beige t-shirt over his green cargo pants. He looks like he’s been up for hours. The back of his shirt is stuck to him in a translucent ‘U’ of sweat. 

“Oh great,” he says, shielding his eyes. “That’sch what I missched the moscht about living with you guysch: Your masschive, uncut European cock in my fasche.”

Skwisgaar fans his wings, making his nude form look even more impressive. “Now who ams deh gringo?” he laughs. It occurs to him that his only pair of pants is lying in shreds next to the shower drain. “Sorry but ehhhhhh… We ams what you might calls… Short of clothe.” For modesty, he grabs one of the bath towels from the back of a chair and ties it around his waist. 

Murderface squints, incredulous. “Yeah, well,” he says, “juscht put that on the lischt.” 

“What list?” 

“Your requescht for aid,” he says, like Skwisgaar is supposed to know this. “You don’t have to bother applying for refugee schtatusch and getting a rachtion book, ‘causche duh— We’re like, VIPs. But you schould make a lischt of the schtuff you need. Like pantsch.” 

He marches over to the stove, waving Skwisgaar out of the way. “Juscht lemme do it,” he huffs, sticking his fist into the firebox and igniting the logs. 

“Pffft— I can does dat,” says Skwisgaar. 

Fire raging, he puts on the water for coffee. He levels four heaping tablespoons into the brew basket, plus another sprinkle for good measure, and follows Murderface back over to the table. 

“Oh, yeah.” Murderface opens his bag and takes out two bundles of wax paper. “Picklesch schaid you guysch get weird when you’re hungry, scho I brought you schome schandwichesch.”

Too hungry to feign offense, Skwisgaar reaches for one of the bundles— But before he can accept it, a shadowy blur snatches it out of Murderface’s hand. A very naked Toki is suddenly perched on the back of the sofa, ripping the paper with his teeth and stuffing the sandwich into his mouth. 

“T’anks.” Skwisgaar rolls his eyes and grabs the other one, peeling back the paper with his forefinger and thumb. It’s ham and cheese on soft white bread. Fat, protein, carbs. Delicious. Eating in front of people used to make him nervous, but it feels like a moot point now. At least, he manages to wolf it down without swallowing part of the wrapper. Toki makes him look civilized by comparison. 

Murderface's hand stays frozen in the air. The constant furrow across the bridge of his nose deepens. “He’sch awake?” he says to Skwisgaar, like it’s an accusation. 

Skwisgaar raises an eyebrow. “You’s sorprised, and yet…” He pauses, chewing. “You broughts two sandwiches.” 

“I wasch juscht trying to cover my baschesch! You know, to be polite!” 

Finishing his sandwich in about three bites, Toki glides across the room on his wings and skids to a halt, his bare feet slapping the tiles. “Moidaface!” he beams. There are crumbs in his beard. 

Skwisgaar wraps him in the other towel. “Toki, we haves company,” he says, with faux-reproach. “Covers your shame.”

But Toki is barely listening. He slams into Murderface and crushes him in a one-armed hug. “Oh, I misses you guys so much!” He knuckles Murderface’s sweaty back, laying a head on his shoulder. “You’s so strongs!” he says. “I forgots you was dis strongs. Ohhh you can be my pal for reals! Hugs you an’ everyt’ing!”

Murderface’s blood pressure crescendos. “Heeeyyyy there, pal, ummmm—” His hands squeeze the air at Toki’s sides, his face turning bright red. “Don’t kill me! Ohfuck— Ohpleasche, schweet baby Lord—”

“Don’t worries!” Toki chirps. He lets go, bouncing on his heels. By some miracle, the towel manages to stay in place. “You’s not delicate likesa normal humans. Dere’s no way I could kills you by accident. Only ons porpose!” 

Murderface tries to brush the residue of Death off his shirt. “That’sch not exchactly reasschuring!” He looks to Skwisgaar, pleading with him to intercede. 

“Coffee ams ready,” Skwisgaar says mildly. 

They each grab a cup and sit around the table. Murderface sits as far away from Toki as he can, hugging the canvas bag in his lap and gawking whenever he thinks Toki isn’t looking. But as they go over the paperwork together, he starts to relax. His pulse slows to a resting _adagio_. And in no time at all, he and Toki resume an old rhythm. 

“But why can’t _we_ fills it outs? We knows how to writes! Kinda…” 

“Becausche it’sch gotta be in Schpanisch, genius. ¿Hablasch Eschañol? I didn’t freakin’ think scho.” Murderface slaps the stack of forms against his open palm. 

“Ya didn’t even gives me deh chance to answers!” Toki protests.

Skwisgaar and Murderface look at him, waiting. Toki glances back and forth between them, turning violet. 

“Toki… Does you? Speaks Spanish?” Skwisgaar smirks. “I can’t believes all dis times, we never knows dis abouts you.”

“Wow, schh— Lischten to th— We’ve got a regular polyglot on are handsch.” Murderface offers up the papers, pretending to be impressed. “Toki, you schpeak Schpanisch?” 

“Noes.” Toki hunches in his chair. “I’m just sayin’s you shouldn’t assumes!” 

“Anyway—” The papers land on the table.

“Waits a minute, how does _you_ knows _spansk_?” 

Murderface exhales through his nose, producing twin curls of visible steam. “Uh, it’sch called immerschion? Hello? I’ve been living here for over a year.” 

“Oh. Rights.”

“Now, asch I wasch schaying, before you _interrupted me_ again—” He clicks his pen. “We can schtart with your baschic food and schuppliesch. I already wrote down ‘pantsch,’ becausche _ew_.” He scribbles something as he speaks. “But you’re alscho gonna need schomething a little nischer than your uschual hobo ragsch for making offischial appearansches.”

“I wants a sewing machine!” Toki blurts. “And fabrics! And crafts paper to makes my own patterns!” 

“Okaaay…” Murderface looks skeptical, but he seems to be writing this down. 

“I makes us clothe.” Toki clasps his room temperature coffee, dreamily taking Skwisgaar’s measurements with his eyes. “Forsa cortain… special occasions.”

This sounds ominous to Skwisgaar, given what he knows about Toki’s fashion sense; But he’s glad to see Toki excited about something. 

“Ohhhh I already knows what I wants to makes!” 

“Got it. Great. Can we— Schtay on taschk here?” 

  
  
  
  


With some haggling— Murderface warns it won’t be easy to find a pack of thirteen gauge, stainless steel, Gibson brand guitar strings in a small communist nation that’s been economically isolated for five decades —they compile their wish list. The government is anxious to buy them off, he says, so they can ask for whatever they want, within reason. Tobacco and booze are easy gets, as is Toki’s request for a prosthetic arm, thanks to Cuba’s surprisingly robust healthcare system. Other articles, like shampoo, are surprisingly difficult to come by. They’ll probably have to make due with that generic pink bar soap for laundry and dishes, as well as for bathing. 

Some things take longer than others, but over the course of the following weeks, the house is well stocked. The tall cabinet is freighted with coffee, rum, fruit juice, canned tomatoes, rice, beans, lard, bacon, yeast, flour, salt, sugar, vegetable oil, wafer cookies, boxed pasta, and bouillon. Garlic, chilis, and dried herbs hang from the rack over the sink, and the counter is piled high with plantains, mangos, avocados, loaves of white bread, and cartons of eggs. Plain cotton sweatpants and t-shirts arrive shrink wrapped in plastic and smelling of the factory they were made in. First, more kerosene, bar soap, and sawdust firestarters; Then cutlery, scissors, and bug spray, days later.

The cargo appears in plastic shipping crates at their door, like offerings at a temple. The men who deliver it are too afraid to knock, so they just leave everything at the threshold before piling into their Jeep and driving away down the beach, talking to each other in Spanish. They usually come and go in the night, and for a while, every day feels like Christmas morning. 

Once, they come home from flying above the waves to find that they’ve been hooked up the power grid. There are no light fixtures, no outlets in the concrete walls— but there’s a circuit breaker near the door with a mess of wires running out of it, and the antique Soviet ice box has been replaced by an antique Soviet chest freezer filled to the brim with cartons of ice cream. 

Skwisgaar loves the quiet and the privacy. Nathan is staying with his parents in Havana, while Murderface divides his time between the barracks and the house he shares with Pickles on a different stretch of beach. And so, he and Toki spend most of their time alone. 

In a concession to the law of entropy, they finally slip the faded rope bracelets from around their wrists and place them in an empty cigar box in the cabinet. It feels like the right way to christen the house, so that already, they have memories here. It’s a place they plan to stay for a long time.

The open-concept living space is really ideal for them, the thirty foot ceiling allowing them to fly around the room with ease. Most days, they roll out of bed at noon and eat a huge breakfast, spend the afternoon and evening practicing guitar, watch the sunset, take a long shower, light a nice fire, and eat and drink in front of it until they feel like going to sleep. Toki earnestly devotes himself to playing with his new prosthetic, which allows him to pick by using his bicep and shoulder to operate a metal hand. The sound is rough, but he’s making progress. Skwisgaar soothes him through the inevitable fits of frustration, holding him and saying nothing— good or bad —about his playing. Sometimes, they just lie on the beach and look up at the clouds. The waves are the soundtrack to everything. And every night, they close their eyes and listen to each other’s heartbeats, to know that they’re not alone.

He can’t remember the last time he felt so at home; Maybe never. 

They cut each other’s hair to mid-back, and Toki trims his beard in the side of their stainless steel stock pot while waiting for water to boil. With regular grocery deliveries, he has ample opportunity to show off his culinary skills, and if he’s no Jean-Pierre, at least he knows how to season rice and beans so that they don’t taste boring— a process that apparently involves brown sugar and ends of bacon. Skwisgaar’s palate is pretty indiscriminate, except to tell him that the more fat and sugar in something, the better, so he enjoys just about everything Toki makes. Most of all, he enjoys the fact of having someone to cook for him. And fix things around the house when they’re broken, and massage him when his muscles are sore, and detangle his hair in the shower with a wide tooth comb, and preen his feathers when one day it turns out he’s molting, and carry him to bed when he’s drooping in front of the fire, and make him little animals out of folded construction paper, and whisper affirmations against his lips while pulling him off. 

After three weeks, Toki’s sewing machine finally arrives. It’s a pedal-operated Singer joint that looks like it hasn’t been in use since the Batista years, but Toki is completely in love with it. He pushes it against the wall perpendicular to the sofa and pulls up a chair, immediately figuring out how to load the bobbin and feed the needle, the bolts of fabric he ordered piled around him on the floor. One upside to having grown up without electricity, Skwisgaar figures, is that you probably don’t miss it as much when it’s gone.

He sits lengthwise across the sofa with the Explorer and a fifth of gold rum in his lap, watching Toki sketch cryptic shapes on the crinkly craft paper. “I know you saids you pickeds up a few t’ings,” he observes, “but I didn’t know you was likesa real… sewings guy.”

Toki is crouched on the floor, rotating the ream of paper over a thick poster board as he works, so that his line isn’t ruined by the bumpy tile. Sometimes, the prosthetic hand acts like the needle point of a compass, pinning the paper as his flesh hand sketches a curve. “I wasn’t supposed to lorns,” he says. “In deh village, sewings was considered goils’ work.” He erases and flicks the rubber crumbs away— irking Skwisgaar, who works so hard to keep the sand off their floor. “But I hangs around deh goils a lot, because dhey was nicer to me den deh udder boys, and deh grownups. And along deh way, dhey teaches me things.” He grabs the measuring tape. “Comes here.”

“Agains?” Skwisgaar sets the Explorer aside and climbs to his feet. 

Toki beckons him closer, metal fingers pinching the tab at one end and holding about three feet of tape in the air. “I gotsta make sure I gets it rights.”

“You still hasn’t told me what you’s makings,” says Skwisgaar. The tape is cold against his bare skin, but it warms as Toki moves it around. There are several different kinds of white fabric on the floor, from big cutouts of voile and cotton jersey, to smaller lengths of delicate crepe. He doesn’t know enough about pattern-making to tell what he’s looking at, but it strikes him as a very complicated garment.

“Das because you already knooows,” Toki sing-songs. He shimmies the tape down Skwisgaar’s ribcage, making sure its level. “You’s gonna feels like such an idiot when you puts it togethers.” 

He spins Skwisgaar around to measure the narrowest distance between his wings. Then the length of the base, where they connect with his body. The tape his followed by a swipe of tongue. 

“Am I sensings euuughhhh… _ulteriors motives_ heres?” Skwisgaar asks. 

“What I’m s’posed to do? I can’t helps it. You’s too beautifuls.”

He fidgets on his feet, glowing under the attention. The freshly trimmed beared is delightfully prickly.

“Your belly haves, like. Ridges,” says Toki, like he’s just now noticing them. The tape measure rolls away into the pile of fabric, coming unwound. His hand moves down the front of Skwisgaar's torso, the metal one steadying his hip. 

“Well. Dhey’s not as impressive as yours.” 

He swoons, distracted by the feeling. “Ohhh, I loves you dis way.”

Skwisgaar snorts, pretending to be offended. “Oh, ja? Was I too skinnies for you before?” 

“You’s always been beautifuls, of course.” He can hear Toki rolling his eyes. “But now…” The hand starts working its way back upward. “You’s like deh porfect shape. You’s still so elegants and slenders. But you feels more… substantials. I loves dat feeling when I holds you.” He demonstrates by squeezing from behind. “Plus, you didn’t haves wings before. Dhey makes you even more beautifuls.”

As though hearing this praise, Skwisgaar’s wings ruffle themselves, and a few stray feathers float to the floor. “Well, I’m not crazy about dem at deh moment,” he says. The itching is getting worse. It never even occurred to him, since sprouting wings, that he might be subjected to the indignity of molting, and he’s not looking forward to finding out what the whole process entails. 

“What?” Toki spins him around, looking at him like has two heads, instead of merely six limbs. “What’s wrong wiffs you? Flyings ams deh coolest!” 

“But what about all deh rest of deh times? Dhey just gets in deh way.” Whenever he notices them, they feel strange; Like a pair of super-long, handless arms coming out of his back. 

“You’s crazy.” The wing scoops Skwisgaar up, demonstrating its utility by way of pulling him into an embrace. “Having wings ams pure greats.”

“Ja?” 

“Like big blankets dat ams also arms for huggings!” 

Skwisgaar can’t help but chuckle at this inimitably Toki-esque description. “You’s such a goofball,” he sighs. 

They hold each other and then wrap their wings around each other in a double layer hug. He squirms, enjoying the feeling. It’s a bit like being rolled up in an impossibly soft carpet. A carpet that is also arms. An attack of the giggles brings them to the floor, wrestling each other in the pile of fabric and tickling between each other’s feathers. The poster board is kicked out of the way, the sheet of translucent crafting paper gusting up and fluttering back down. Their wings beat with excitement, making a dull sound that’s reminiscent of a seated dog’s tail pounding the floor when it wags. They roll onto their backs, flushed and laughing, and stare up at the ceiling. Some of Skwisgaar’s loose feathers rain down on top of them, like the aftermath of a pillow fight.

“Okej,” he says. “You makes a pretty compellings case for wings.” 

“Ja.” Toki stretches out like a star. “But I would gives dem up in a second,” he says, turning sober, “if I could haves my arm back.”

Skwisgaar flips onto his belly, propping himself on his elbows. Despite real improvement, it doesn’t seem like Toki will ever be satisfied with his modified guitar playing. Even when he’s clean enough, he just can’t seem to hit the tempo. They’ve talked about slowing it down to match him, but they both know this would be compromising Skwisgaar’s vision. And Toki refuses to be the cause of that.

“Can’ts even holds you deh way I wants to,” says Toki. “I wanna grabs you wiffs boff hands, and never lets go. But I can’ts.” 

“You knows what?” Skwisgaar asks. 

Toki peers up at him over his chest. 

“I’m not gonna stops looking for ways to heals you,” Skwisgaar says. “But even ifs I never finds one… You’s gonna be okej. You’s still gonna haves a good lifes.” 

Toki sits up, curling his abs, and drags a length of white cotton jersey up with him like a shawl. “I knows,” he says softly. There’s a slow smile crinkling his eyes. 

Skwisgaar feels like such an idiot when he notices that little smile, and realizes exactly what the new outfit is for. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Eventually, they’re expected to put in appearances.

The President of Cuba’s Council of State, a young man with a firm handshake and nervous, subtle energy, welcomes them in Spanish as Murderface translates. Many of the old guard died in the initial scramble, and since then, a series of palace coups has left a young, ambitious cadre of apparatchiks in charge of the party.

For the ceremony, Dethklok are ushered onto a red carpeted platform before a stained glass window of the rising sun that makes up the entire back wall of the Council chamber. They’re a pretty motley crew, next to all of these men and women in suits: Skwisgaar and Toki in pajama sweats and sneakers; Pickles in cargo shorts and a pink Hawaiian shirt with extra armholes cut into the sides; Murderface in his navy blue dress uniform, a ceremonial sword at his hip, his curly hair pulled back into a ponytail that’s more of a pouf; Nathan, barefoot, in nothing but a pair of blue jeans. Luckily, all they have to do is stand there through several speeches and rounds of applause, before coming down to share in the toasting.

At first, Toki is frigid, huddling at Skwisgaar’s elbow and trying to minimize himself as much as possible. He’s never had to deal with this many mortals in one place before, and the combined vibration of their souls is overwhelming. But once the crowd starts mingling and he’s got a few drinks in him, he seems happy enough to stand in the corner with the others. Occasionally, Skwisgaar lets the backs of their hands brush, in order to let him know he’s got a lifeline. 

“Man, this is just like one of those lame label parties,” says Nathan. “Except without all the models. Even lamer.” He swirls his ice cubes, looking around for a waiter. “Hey Murderface.” He grimaces, holding back a laugh. “Why are you dressed as a nutcracker?” 

“Exchusche me?” Murderface has peeled off his white gloves, keeping them folded in the crook of his elbow while he holds his glass. “I am the _only one_ who isch dressched appropriately!” 

“Aww, is okej,” says Toki. “I likes your sword!” 

Murderface puffs steam from his nostrils, unappeased. “Thisch isch a schtate cheremony!” he says. “Nathan, why can I schee your fisch titsch?!”

“Umm. ‘Cause I don’t care.” 

“And you!” He glares from Nathan to Pickles, who’s too busy quadruple fisting liquor to acknowledge him. “I _gave_ you a cuschtom made uniform.” 

“Aww Pickle, you gotsa a sword, too?” asks Toki. “Why didn’t I gets a sword?”

“Yeah, hey. Why-didn’t-I-get-a-sword?” Nathan hurls his glass on the floor in protest, letting the noise of the party cover the sound. 

“Yeah Moidaface, dis ams bullshits!” Toki downs the rest of his drink and copies him. 

“What the hell are you guysch doing?” Murderface whisper-screams, looking frantically over his shoulder. “You can’t juscht— Break thosche. They belong to the Communischt Party!” 

“So? Why do I have to listen to some communist bureaucrat telling me what to do, huh? Why haven’t you like. Overthrown these guys already?”

“Wooow, Nathan.” He crosses his arms, still holding his drink and the gloves in one hand. “I didn’t take you for a Yankee imperialischt pig. What about the schovereignty of the Cuban people?”

Nathan doesn’t seem particularly impressed, but Murderface is on a roll. 

“And before you schay _anything!_ ” He jabs a finger at Skwisgaar. “Schandanavian schocial democrachy isch not real schocialischm!” 

Skwisgaar removes his chin from the rim of his glass, where it’s been resting this whole time. “I wasn’t? Goink to says anyt’ing?” 

Pickles soft-punches Murderface in the arm with his knuckles. “G’ ahff yer high horse, _William,_ ” he slurs. He gestures back towards the carpeted platform, where a group of Council members are gathered. “Yer just cahpyin’ what dhoze guys say. Ya dun’een know what yer tahlkin’ about.”

“Yesch I do!” Murderface raises two fingers. “There’sch, ya know. The bourgeoischie. And the— The other one.” 

“Yeahhhh, I dunno jack shit about pahlitics either, but at least I can admit it.” 

“Fine.” He lowers his voice, leaning forward like they’re in a football huddle. “You guysch wanna know the real reaschon I go along with all thisch schtuff?” 

“What?” Nathan blinks. 

“There are like twelve million people on thisch island,” Murderface hisses under his breath. “Do you have any idea what a cluschterfuck it isch, trying to feed and housche all thosche poor schapsch? I don’t wanna be reschponschible for any of that schit! Everyone hatesch the government! All I have to do isch go out there and kill schome zchombiesch, and I’m a goddamn natchional hero! All the boozche I can drink, all the ische cream I can eat, and everybody lovesch me? Why would I wanna fuck that up for myschelf?” 

None of them can argue with this logic, so they all just look at him and shrug. 

“And here I am.” He places a hand over his medals. “Trying to schare thisch bounty with you, my bandmatesch. And you couldn’t even be bothered to put on a schirt?” 

Nathan mutters something inaudible. 

“What wasch that?” 

“I said it’s uncomfortable.” He sighs, embarrassed. “Okay? I don’t like to cover up my gills. I didn’t know it was such a big deal.” Reaching behind him, he grabs a fistful of caviar toasts off a passing hors d’oeuvres tray and crams them into his mouth. “Let’s get outta this place.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


They step out into one of the many stately Spanish colonial courtyards, surrounded with blue agave and royal palms. Cicadas form a wall of white noise. The tiered fountain in the center glitters in the dark. They used to jet off to some gorgeous world capital almost every other weekend. In fact, Old Havana was one of the only ones they never got to see. Now, it’s all that’s left.

Nathan stretches his triceps and cracks his neck, glad to be back in the open air. 

“Okay,” he says. “Skwisgaar, Pickles, whaddaya say we go get started on this album, huh?” 

Skwisgaar tenses, suddenly naked without his guitar. “Rights now?” He glances at Pickles, seeking confirmation, but Pickles isn’t looking at him. They’ve barely spoken all night. 

“I’ve got this notebook back at the house where I’ve been writing down the lyrics I came up with underwater. I can’t want to show you guys.” Nathan frowns when he realizes no one is jumping to take him up on it. “What? What is it?”

“Actually, uh…” Pickles scratches his elbow. His third eye flutters, alcohol slowing his movements. “I think… Me n’ Skwisgaar kinda… Gotta tahlk about somethin’ first.” 

“Oh. Okej.” Skwisgaar straightens. 

His wingtip brushes Toki’s leg, registering his concern. Are you okay going home without me? 

Toki stuffs his hands in his pockets, thinking, and then nods. I’ll be fine. Go talk to Pickles. 

The night air feels colder as he peels away.

“Well, I don’t know about you loschersch,” says Murderface, “but I have schtuff to do.” He marches down the tree lined walkway, while Toki takes to the air.

Nathan hesitates, disappointed. Jealous? Skwisgaar can almost feel him scrubbing through the tape of his memory, trying to figure out what could be going on in the band without his knowledge. “I guess I’ll catch up with you guys later, then,” he says, before following the others into the darkness. 

The fountain smells like chlorine. Skwisgaar stands next to it, waiting for Pickles to speak first. 

He had a good time at this stupid thing. Managed to work up a nice buzz. Toki was calm and under control. The incident between him and Pickles couldn’t have been further from his mind. 

“Well… den…” he says, when Pickles doesn’t start.

“Sahrry.” Pickles sits down on the lip of the fountain. “I’m sahrry. I’m naht— good at dhis. Personal stuff.” 

Skwisgaar sits, facing him sideways to keep his wings out of the water. Even seated, he could almost rest his chin on the top of Pickles’s head. He tries to imagine what it would be like to be smaller, but he hasn’t been Pickles’s height since he was fourteen. How much scarier the world would be, if he weren’t so big.

“I just wanna… apahlahgize,” says Pickles. He slips his feet in and out of his sandals, hooking the leather thongs between different toes. 

“I’m not tryna go through people’s innermost shit ahll dah time. I didn’t know… _dhat_ was gonna be dhere, right at dah top’a yer mind, at dhat particular second.” 

The inside of the fountain is tiled with a mosaic of spirals in different shades of turquoise and blue. Skwisgaar doesn’t want to talk about _that_ right now. 

“Is okej,” he says. 

“But it’s _naht_ okay.”

He feels the lack of his guitar again. He never knows what to do with his hands.

“You thinks of me differently, now dhat you knows,” he says.

“Nah, I mean— Dhat’s naht what I’m tryna—” Pickles twists towards him. The lower arms catch him as he starts to slip. “Sahrry. Still, uuuummm. Pretty drunk.” 

“You’s okej?”

“Yeh.”

Skwisgaar sticks his hand under the water, dividing the stream. Noticing the contrast of temperatures. The water makes the air feel warm. 

“I knows you didn’t means to horts me, Pickle.” He dries his hand on his shirt. “And I forgives you.”

Pickles sighs. In relief? “Thanks.” He looks so tired. Skwisgaar wonders if he’s been carrying this guilt around for weeks. They should have talked about this earlier, but he’s been so absorbed with other things. Absorbed with Toki. 

The bugs are all over him out here. He can’t stay still for too long. He gets up, pacing in front of the fountain. The new sneakers squeak when he walks.

“Can you does somet’ing for me?” he asks. “Can you looks into my mind again, and tells me somet’ing?”

“Ohehh… I dunno if dhat’s such a good idea.”

He kneels so that Pickles is looking down at him and bows his wings. The position puts him downwind of Pickles’s liquor breath. 

“Please,” he says. “I needsta know.”

Without even fully touching the ground, his feathers can feel the vibrations of vehicles leaving the party through the terracotta brick behind him. The sensitive primaries orient him like a cat’s whiskers, unconsciously skimming over nearby surfaces. It might be impossible for him to ask this if he wasn’t so sure of their being alone. 

Pickles’s chin hits his chest. For a second, it looks like he’s falling asleep. His heart rate slows to strolling hi-hat groove.

The eye opens wide, and this time, Skwisgaar is ready to face it. He imagines Toki, ecstasy, and gore. Without subjecting Pickles to the specifics, he tries to convey the intensity of it. The recurring arguments. The cycle of pushing and pulling. The repetitive, addict behaviors. The beginnings of something more extreme. 

“But we’s happy, ja?” he asks. “And we’s not hortings anyone dis way.” 

Pickles presses his temples. “Ohhhheeee… hang on. Head rush.” He lurches, like he’s about to vomit in Skwisgaar’s hair, but seems to swallow it back down. “Sahrry.” He burps. “Dhat’s not you; Dhat’s drinkin’ enough to kill ten people.” 

Skwisgaar reaches up, applying his fingertips to Pickle’s brow and smoothing the nausea away. He is careful to avoid the eye. 

“Thanks.” Pickles sighs through his nose, pausing a couple of measures to collect his thoughts. “So, what I’m gettin’ is dhis,” he says. “Correct me if I’m wrahng, but basically you’ve given up on tryna handle yer shit dah way you think yer s’posed to, and decided to OD on cope. Insteada addressin’ yer excessive need fer external validation, ya just have Toki dhere to put you on a pedestal 24/7. Prahblem solved.”

Skwisgaar lowers himself further, the bridge of his nose burning. “Dat ams… accurate…” 

“So, what? Are ya askin’ me fer permission to be codependent?” 

The eye swivels in a way he can’t help but interpret as sarcastic. 

“We keeps each other calm.” He bristles. “You sees Toki tonight; He was doin’ so goods.”

“Ya mean ‘cause he didn’t accidentally kill anybody?”

“Amn’ts dat betters? For everyone? Healthiers den deh alternatives? Even if it ams euugghh… little extremes.” 

“Shit, I dunno. Just ‘cause I can read yer mind, don’t make me a fecken psychahlagist. You two— Do whatever ya gotta do.”

Pickles slips his sandals back on and wobbles to his feet. “Okay,” he says. “I gotta take a leak.” He shuffles over to the bushes, Skwisgaar following close behind to catch him if he falls, and starts pissing into a regal looking fan of blue agave. 

That’s the plant they make tequila out of, Skwigaar thinks, dumbly. Coming full circle, to water itself. Life is just the universe drinking its own piss. 

“Dood.” Pickles continues talking to him over the sound of the stream. “Ya want me to validate yer need fer validation— Eeep, oop, hang on, I got a lil’ more. Sahrry. Isn’t dhat, yanno. Kinda circular?” 

He zips back up and turns around. The eye is more green and less pink than when he was sober, its ice cream colors melting together. 

Skwisgaar’s toes curl inside his shoes. 

“I guess deh real question I wanteds to aks you was, ehhh. Ams I like dis… because of what happened to me?” 

“Ehhhhhwell,” Pickles squints, uncomfortable. The second set of arms folds against him as though nursing a stomach ache. 

They stand there, staring at each other’s shins.

“Yanno,” he offers, “I usedta think I was just fucked up ‘cause of my brother. But now, I see what’s in people’s heads, and it ain’t always such a straight line.” He throws up a couple of equivocating hands. “Dhere’s a lotta people out dhere who’re way more fucked up dhen you are, over a whole lot less.” 

Skwisgaar weighs these words, taking their meter. He’s not ready to take their meaning.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” he says. 

Pickles laughs. “I fucken hated ‘im, yanno? I used to fantasize about killin’ ‘im.” His brow trembles. The eye has gone back to sleep. “So why’s it make me sad to know dhat he’s gone?”

Skwisgaar doesn’t know what to say to this. The fact that he can’t just fix things for Pickles is burning a slow hole in his stomach lining. The bottled lightning makes his fingers ache, as if he cut his nails too close.

“You wanna go catches up wit’ Nat’an?” he asks. At least the album gives them something else to think about. 

“Yeh.”

He puts on a teasing voice. “Let’s him reads to us from his diary likesa real ladies slumbor party?”

Pickles wheezes. “Okay—” he says. “I gaht one: Murmaider II.”

“Ja?”

“‘Cause dis tiiimmeee…” 

“Ja?”

“Ahahahaha— Get it?” 

“Oh ja, because he ams—?”

“Riiiight? Ahahahahaha oh my gahd. You get it? ‘Cause dis tiiimmmeeee… He’s dah mermaid!” 

“Das… huehuehuehue…” Skwisgaar catches his breath. “Dat ams a pretty good one, Pickle.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


He gets home later than he meant to. Time flies when they get into a writing groove, but eventually Nathan’s mom kicks them out.

When he walks in the door, he finds Toki’s shoes lined up in front of the stove like they’re waiting for Sinterklaas— Though he wouldn’t put it past Toki to befriend Krampus. Smiling to himself, he unties his own shoes and lines them up next to the others, tucking the laces inside the way Serveta taught him. Bolts of fabric are neatly propped against the wall next to the sewing machine, and all the crafting debris has been cleared away. The empty tile floor glows in the moonlight. 

Peeling off his clothes, he climbs under the mosquito net and rolls until Toki’s back stops him. A sweet, earthy scent fills his lungs, the oil of Toki’s feathers mixing with the perfume of almond soap. 

“How dids your talk go?” Toki asks. 

Skwisgaar stretches his legs under the covers, finding a good spooning position. “Goods,” he says. “Actuallies, we did ends up goings into town wiffs Nat’an. Gots some good song writings done.”

“You sees your moms and Týr?”

“Ja. Dhey lives on deh same floor ofs dis building wiffs Nat’an’s parents.” He laces his fingers over Toki’s belly, listening to his back. “Hey… you’s been doin’ so goods. I think it ams high times I brings you dere.” He kisses Toki’s vertebra. But there’s some feedback in the mix. “What’s wrongs?”

“I don’t likes dat he can reads your mind,” says Toki. “It amn’ts fairs.”

Skwisgaar arches against him, purring. “You can reads my mind.” 

At close range, their bodies resonate patterns so intricate at conveying their thoughts and emotions that it feels indistinguishable from some kind of psychic connection. 

“It amn’ts deh sames.” Toki flips over to face him. “I’m sorries—” His jaw is tight. “I don’t wanna bes dis way. It’s just— It’s so hards. I gets so jealous.” He clenches. 

“Is okej.” Skwisgaar runs a hand along the arc of his wing. “You didn’t do anyt’ing wrongs.” 

Toki grabs him as tightly as he can with one arm. His prosthetic is downstairs on the table. 

“Is nevers enough,” he says. “I nevers stops wanting—” 

“I knows.” Skwisgaar pants, feeling himself uncurl. His erection swells against the ridges of Toki’s belly. His teeth ache with cold, the air rushing in and out of his mouth, while the rest of him is burning. “I wants deh same t’ings as you.” 

They roll together, grappling each other in a futile attempt to pull each other apart. Skwisgaar’s feathers shed among the blankets. Toki rakes them with his fingers, and then with his tongue, plunging his face into them. Little lashes of white down stick to his dark wings like snow. 

“ _Worship me,_ ” says Skwisgaar. “ _Tell me I’m great._ ” The sound of his own voice is mortifying. He sounds absurd. But then he catches sight of Toki’s face, and his stomach plunges. He’s so hard. It feels so good. He doesn’t care how he sounds. 

“ _You are,_ ” says Toki. “ _You are everything. You’re the most perfect being in the universe._ ” 

They kiss, grinding their pelvises together, and his hand massages Skwisgaar’s chest. Budding callouses trace the little scar above his heart over and over again. 

“ _I can’t bear it—_ ” Toki sobs. “ _You’re so beautiful. I just—_ ” His hand is frantic, squeezing the left side of Skwisgaar’s chest so hard it hurts. “ _I wanna be you. I wanna be you. It’s unbearable to live in a world where you exist, and have to be separate from you. I know it’s crazy. I know it’s crazy._ ” 

He’s weeping. This isn’t any sort of role play. He’s serious. Maybe that should turn Skwisgaar off— But he doesn’t want it to stop. 

“ _Come here._ ” He lifts his hips, rubbing himself on Toki’s thigh. They kiss again. Come here, he rumbles into Toki’s mouth. Closer. Yes. Like that. Vibrations lick along their spines, wiring their nervous systems together. Now you’re me, he thinks. And I’m you. 

I feel it, thinks Toki. The muscle of his tongue vibrates inside of Skwisgaar’s mouth. Thank you. My one God. My one love. Your mind is so beautiful. Thank you for letting me in. 

Skwisgaar moans, feeling them blur together. The hand phases through him. Toki is inside him, inside his chest. There is a sensation like a hot rake, scraping against the inside of his ribs. And then, an explosion of stars, a sensation of mind-rending intimacy. They are both here, in this bed, and they are overlapping in space. 

Ghostly fingers close around his heart, and he can see it in his mind’s eye: The indestructible core of him. The source of all his power. It looks just like a human heart, with valves and chambers, except that it’s pure gold. And it contains the code for making him, a billion times more ancient and complex than a string of human DNA. He could be vaporized in a nuclear blast, reduced to literal ashes, and his entire body would grow back around it. 

But in this moment, he feels at peace with his immortality. Toki is with him. The shadow fingers caress him. He is completely surrounded, completely filled. They both come, without him even reaching down to grab them. They come from the merging sensation alone. 

He bites his tongue, the pleasure and warmth followed by a shock of pain. Toki’s fingers are briefly solid as they withdraw, tearing holes inside the wall of his pectoral muscle. He looks up, open mouthed, to see Toki straddling him, frozen in horror at the sight of his bloody fingers. 

“ _No—_ ” Skwisgaar reacts quickly, tackling him before he can slip away. 

“ _I hurt you!_ ” Toki wails. “ _Why did I do that? Why did I do that?_ ”

“ _Shhhh…_ ” Skwisgaar floods him with light, keeping him still. The inside of his chest is screaming. He can feel his dense flight muscles stretching, the fibers throbbing and wriggling to fill in the gaps. “ _It’s okay,_ ” he says. “ _Stay with me. It’s okay._ ” He brings Toki’s hand to his mouth and licks his fingers, tasting his own blood. “ _See?_ ” he says when he’s done. “ _All clean._ ”

It takes a few minutes, but Toki relaxes against him. The worst of the pain passes quickly, replaced with golden heat. He kisses the top of Toki’s head.

“ _Are you okay?_ ” he asks. 

He feels Toki nod. Toki eases closer, hiding in the crook of Skwisgaar’s wing. Their heartbeats settle, as they stay motionless for a long time. But he seems shaken. 

Maybe they should take things slow for a while, Skwisgaar thinks. Just take care of themselves. Focus on staying healthy. Not do anything too crazy with their powers. Contentment blankets his mind as he prepares to fall asleep to this plan. But Toki’s voice wakes him again. 

“ _We were God,_ ” Toki sobs. “ _We were one, and we were God._ ” 

“ _Yes._ ” Skwisgaar smiles. 

“ _That’s how we were, at the beginning of the Universe. That’s how we were supposed to be. How did we get separated? How did this happen?_ ”

Skwisgaar strokes his lips over Toki’s hair. This is pain relief, he thinks. Their relationship is pain relief. That’s what makes it so addictive. Someday, it’ll be more than that. Someday, they’ll have sophisticated, ancient minds, that will seek more than repetitive, infantile pleasures. But for now, what’s wrong with pain relief? 

“ _Maybe God was lonely,_ ” he says. “ _Maybe God split itself in two, so it could keep itself company._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Donate to my comment fund to help me survive the harsh winter.


End file.
